Review by Jon C. Stott
In the early 1960s, Bob (“R.H.”) Miller, an instructor in the English Department of Michigan Tech, discovered the joys of fly fishing in the Upper Peninsula’s many trout streams. Now, his fishing days over, he has delved into what he calls a “creel full of memories” to create the short stories, poems, and essays that are collected in Upper Michigan: Stories, Memories, and Poems.
Most of the lyrical poems celebrate fly fishing and serve as grace notes to the stories and essays. They are pieces that invite readers to pause and savor the activities the writer so loves. Here are three of my favorite lines: “He flicks his rod with a painter’s touch”; “The line twangs like a banjo string”; and the river flows over “pebbles colored like a crazy quilt.”
Even though I have never been a fisherman, my favorites of the eight stories are about fly fishing at special places and the relationships between the fishers. In “The Essence of Wisdom,” the narrator celebrates Ron, a good friend but a poor fisherman who dies suddenly, still filled with happiness at having landed a sucker he mistakes for a rainbow trout. In “Homecoming,” a fisherman has a chance encounter with the father of a young man recently returned from Viet Nam and receives from the old man the gift of a hand-tied fly.
Three of the stories are about fishing trips made by spouses. In “Life for Life,” a mother grieving the recent loss of a son catches and releases a hen salmon filled with roe. “A Little Learning” is about a wife who ties her own flies and is a better angler than her husband facing the breakup of their marriage. “Queen of the Waters,” (the name of a fly) showcases a husband’s admiration of his wife, an excellent fly fisher who catches and releases her first steelhead, proclaiming, “This is one of the best days of my life.”
R.H. Miller
The essays celebrate the lives of those who have shaped and/or shared Miller’s love of fly fishing: his mentor Sherwood Price, who could tie “trout flies of inexpressible beauty”; UP author John Voelker (Robert Traver) who described the beauty of a good fishing trip as “a modest catch accomplished with skill and love”; and his wife, whose love of and skill at fly fishing has provided one of the pillars of a strong marriage.
R.H. Miller’s collection is what some reviewers would call “a slender volume.” There are fewer than one hundred pages of text, but they are filled with a beauty and depth like that of a beloved fishing spot. The stories, poems, and essays of Upper Michigan: Stories, Memories, and Poems will reward the reader who savors them, slowly and delicately. Like a favorite fishing spot on a secluded stream, they are well worth returning to.
— Jon C. Stott (Professor Emeritus of English, University of Alberta) has been returning for forty summers to his beloved cabin nestled beside a small Upper Peninsula lake.
