Rip Gerber

I honestly feel a little bad about saying this, but ... geez, what a ridiculous little volume. The book is a vanity-press undertaking by a self-promoting venture capitalist who may have watched "A River Runs Through It" once too often back in the 90s, and who apparently felt that getting a place in Montana and playing around with a fishing pole offered a way to give some meaning to that existence. The prose that comes out of that premise is stilted and purplish, reading like a bad Norman show more Maclean parody and failing in any effort to show an understanding or a connection with a landscape and its waters and its human traditions.

The volume's intended hook was the linking of that story with a playlist ... something that would have been a cool idea if it had been executed well. All the author apparently did, though, was awkwardly jimmy a series of song titles into the body of the narrative, without bothering to think about how or whether the song actually connects with the story itself. The appendix describing the songs is actually fairly solid, but trying to somehow relate the selected songs to the narrative is an exercise in futility, and the appendix is no help there. If you end up with a copy of this book, my advice would be to skip the story entirely and just read the musical trivia in the appendix. show less

This is an odd little book. The first third is essentially a short story about a middle-aged man named Bob who’s recovering from knee replacement surgery (I think; it’s never exactly clear) by fly fishing in the streams of Montana. He’s seeking an elusive “monster” trout named Bessie. The remaining two-thirds consists of endnotes explaining references to classic rock songs that appear throughout the story. Depending on how familiar you are with the songs, the references range from show more organic ("He could not imagine a more beautiful day") to awkward ("Bob leaned against the largest headstone and watched the eight miles high sky as two barn swallows chased off a hawk," "He dreaded the day when his body would live and let die and keep him from the creeks") to laughable ("Song birds darted over the banks and chirped as if it were all right now"). There's even a link to a corresponding Spotify playlist. Hemingway could perhaps have made something profound out of the story, but here it’s hobbled by the musical references. Actually, the notes are more interesting (and better written) than the story. A curio, for sure. Well, it is a pretty decent playlist. show less

This is a quirky little book. It was self published by Rip Gerber, the author, who is apparently a successful entrepeneur, based on his multiple websites. How quirky is it to "tie" fly fishing to the history of rock and roll? And how quirky is it to use the same quote three times (in the body of the book, on the back cover and then, again, on the page before the fly fishing narrative starts)? And then, when it is used on that first page before the narrative begins, to include at the bottom show more the oxymoron "Bozeman, Montana/Havana, Cuba"?
I read the book from cover to cover in a matter of a couple of hours. The fly fishing portion goes on for 56 pages, peppered with footnote notations. It takes a moment to realize that those notations will lead you to a 116 page section of so-called endnotes. Each footnote notation in the narrative marks the title of a rock and roll song that has been interjected into the narrative, generally with a reasonable amount of success. Go to the endnotes and you will find that the origins of each song are explicated there in some detali. It makes for some interesting reading and is essentially the history of rock and roll.
The fly fishing narrative also makes for an interesting but somewhat enigmatic read. Who is Bob? Marc? Dana? Is the narrative biographical? Or maybe autobiographical? or perhaps fictional through and through? But one does learn who Bessie is. Read the book and find out.
Those who are committed fly fishermen are the most dedicated and ethical of all outdoors sportsmen. That comes arcoss very well in the fishing adventure that Bob is having in author's story. There are few things more graceful and enchanting than a fly line being payed out by an experienced fly fisherman. And there is not a more calming, bautiful and inspiriing place to be than on the Madison in Montana or the Fall River in Idaho, or, in this case, five different creeks in the Gallatin drainage in Montana.
And the author "ties" it to rock music! Quirky.
You might think the phrase, "sex, drugs and rock and roll" is a biased comment on a bygone era. (I say bygone - isn't rock and roll dead, killed by heavy metal, the sex pistols and all that racket?) But read the endnotes, which will take you twice as long to read, if not more, than the fly fishing narrative. The phrase is an apt description of what rock and roll was all about. But one could add "early death" and "radical far left politics" to the mix, and still be on the money.
Perhaps that is why the author engimatically joined together Bozeman, Montana and Havana, Cuba! show less

I'm a huge fan of fly fishing books. In fact, I devour them. However, this book was a huge disappointment for me. I'm going to get into some spoilers, so be forewarned!
The book is basically a super short (60 pages) story of a man with a ranch in Montana, who is after a big trout. Other than the idea of making an entire book about this one little story, okay so far.
Where I really had a problem with the book is in the author's attempt to link the story to a song playlist. Again, not in show more itself, a bad idea. He gives you a playlist to listen along with as you read the story. BUT! The author can give you, at times, three songs to listen to in the course of ONE SENTENCE! No one on Earth can possibly read that slow! And the songs are all over the map, in many many genres. No possible connections to pull the song into the sentences that I could understand. Also disturbing was the author's attempts to include the name of the song in the sentence. It was just all rather absurd and off-putting.
I cannot recommend this book. Sorry. show less