Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976)

Norman Maclean's novella "A River Runs Through It," published in 1976 in A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, marks a tradition referred to as "New Western Literature." New Western Literature is a regional literature which escapes from the thematic and genre confines of "The Western" to put the West as a place with a continuous history at the center of Western stories. These narratives of Western homes include the work of Wallace Stegner, Terry Tempest Williams, William Kittredge, and others.


Questions to Think About:

1) "A River Runs Through It" is only on its surface about fishing. What is it really about? Why does Maclean write about fishing when he is really writing about something else?

2) How does gender shape the lives of the men in this novella?
3) What does Maclean mean about humanity, about the meaning of fishing, about belonging to some place, and about the West, when he writes:
"Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters."

Further resources and readings:
Generation Terrorists's favorite quotes from the novella.

The Missoulian's listing of the 100 Most Influential Montanans Page for Norman Maclean

The University of Chicago's dedication of a dormitory, Maclean Hall, for Norman Maclean


Prepared by Professor Catherine Lavender for AMS 241 (Popular Culture--Frontiers and Borderlands), The Program in American Studies, The College of Staten Island of The City University of New York. Send email to lavender@postbox.csi.cuny.edu
Last modified: Friday 31 March 2000.