Maxwell, Jessica. I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly: My Fly Fishing Rookie Season. Seattle: Sasquach, 1997.
Jessica Maxwell takes on fly fishing. I Don’t Know Why I Swallowed the Fly is an account of her very first year learning the sport. As with any hunting sport Jessica needed to learn how to think like her prey. She needed to teach her body, muscle, bones and nerve, to perform the movements necessary for a perfect, flowing cast. As psychological as the game of golf, Jessica found herself untangling the intricacies of throwing out the flawless line. Rod and reel in perfect harmony with human dynamics. Aside from Jessica’s expanse of humor throughout I Don’t Know Why.. I was drawn to the vibrant imagery of the landscapes around her. I adored the way she described, nature – especially when it came to light. Sunlight, especially. Her words had a way of dancing like rays on water, sparkling and bright.
But I Don’t Know Why… isn’t just about one woman’s fly fishing adventure. Jessica subtly deals with the loss of her father with poignant memories and in the end, revelations about the man who shaped her future with a simple love for nature and of course, fishing.
I don’t know anything about fly fishing so, for me, this was a nice 101 about a typically male-dominated sport.
Favorite lines: “Every day somebody somewhere becomes obsessed with an idea that won’t turn them loose” (p 50), “Now the radio static was so bad, Sting sounded like Bob Denver” (p 101), and “My mind was gone to the joy of the memory of what was for a moment so long ago but couldn’t last, and to the pain of what could have been but wasn’t” (p 214).
Small question for Jessica: where is the wrong side of Oregon? I couldn’t find it on a map…
Side note: Make no mistake about it. I always at least glance at the acknowledgments. They are usually a long blahblahblah list filled with family names and “I’d like to thank my editor…” It’s like looking at a yearbook from a school you have never heard of. Names and faces mean nothing. Jessica Maxwell’s acknowledgment page is another yearbook, but a fun one. True, it’s all names I don’t know, but for once Jessica made me want an introduction.
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Gone Fishin’ (p 101).
~*LunaSea*~ 