Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs through It”

The Search for Beauty

George H. Jensen, Heidi Skurat Harris

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN:
  9781032663715
• eBook ISBN:
  9781040090671
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Norman Maclean's "A River Runs through It": The Search for Beauty is the first book-length study of Norman Maclean or any of his works. Since the publication of "A River Runs through It" in 1976, readers and critics have considered it to be one of the most carefully crafted stories in American literature, in terms of both its structure and its style. The beauty of the story came with much hard work. This study traces Maclean's revisions through four handwritten drafts and three typescripts, quoting extensively from previously unpublished material. The analysis of Maclean's composition process lays the foundation for original and detailed discussions of other aspects of Maclean's craft, such as his approach to genre and style. The study publishes for the first time the complete text of the notes that Maclean wrote after the first draft of "A River Runs through It."

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Diplomatic Transcriptions, Citations from Maclean Papers, and Bibliographic Terms
• 1 Norman Maclean’s Improbable Writing Career
• 2 Evolution of the Beginning
• 3 No Clear Line Between Fiction and Nonfiction
• 4 Variations of Time
• 5 The Problem of Genre
• 6 Style and Hidden Art
• 7 The Evolution of the End
• Appendix 1 Notes on Revising “Fly Fishing” (MS1)
• Appendix 2 Typescripts, Fonts, and Typists
• Appendix 3 Implications for Editing “A River Runs through It”
• Appendix 4 Symmetry in “A River Runs through It”
• Bibliography
• Index