The Fisherman
In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.
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Community Reviews
This is a book about grief. Yes, that's obvious - even from the synopsis - but what isn't obvious from a cover blurb is whether or not the book in question will be any good at communicating its theme.
The Fisherman is very, very, very good at it.
This book will take you through the desperate mania of grief at its sharpest, and wrap you in the stifling melancholy of grief at its loneliest. I ached for Abe, and for Dan, and for their loss and their suffering.
This book will show you that grief can be survived, and the grace of letting others help you survive it.
This book will gently warn you that grief does not simply end one day, that you will not suddenly be cured of it, but that it lingers, and that it eases its grip, and that for some people even that easing will not be enough to keep them from drowning in it.
This book will also make you never want to go fishing in the Catskills.
A lot of readers dislike the structure of this book: I get that. There is a strong "A-B-A" division to the sections within the book, and the middle section does take up quite a bit of the novel. It didn't bother me, as I found the middle section engrossing, but I appreciate the critique and I don't think it's unfair at all.
I really enjoyed Langan's very lean, spare, crisp prose. It's not a style I gravitate toward by default - in fact I tend to prefer the opposite - but it worked very well here.
(Crossposted from my Storygraph review.)
I have wanted to read this for so long but just kept putting it off. Once I started, I couldn't stop. The way that the author uses grief as both an emotion that seeps throughout the pages and also a means to usher in horror is great.
The story actually takes place in 3 acts kind of. The first is the intros to the characters, how their lives were horribly changed in a moment, and their love of fishing and its cathartic uses to relieve their grief. The second act goes back in time via a story within this story and tells a tale that details the events that brought about a manmade reservoir to creation...as well as the horrors it unleashed. Finally, the last act details how act 1 is now being influenced by the horrors we read about in act 2.
A great horror story with an awesome narrator (if you get the audible version). I highly recommend this book and it's one of my favorites of the past few years for sure.
The story actually takes place in 3 acts kind of. The first is the intros to the characters, how their lives were horribly changed in a moment, and their love of fishing and its cathartic uses to relieve their grief. The second act goes back in time via a story within this story and tells a tale that details the events that brought about a manmade reservoir to creation...as well as the horrors it unleashed. Finally, the last act details how act 1 is now being influenced by the horrors we read about in act 2.
A great horror story with an awesome narrator (if you get the audible version). I highly recommend this book and it's one of my favorites of the past few years for sure.
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