The Everlasting Stream : A True Story of Rabbits, Guns, Friendship, and Family

Rating:
Summary: Three tales in one
Review: "The Everlasting Stream" is a tale about male relationships, about self discovery and about hunting that does justice to all three subjects. While many books use one story as a vessel to carry another, this develops all three stories simultaneously and completely.

Author Walt Harrington portrays himself as a snobby Washington Post reporter who finds himself tramping around Kentucky fields, shooting rabbits with his father-in-law's hunting buddies to prove he is not above them.

Through the Thanksgiving hunts, Harrington comes to respect the men. He comes to understand himself and to wonder how he so misplaced himself. He grows up with his son and reconsiders his relationship with his late father. Through it all, he thinks deeply about the experience of hunting, turning inside out his initial revulsion to it. In the end, the hunts lead him to make a profound change in his life.

Harrington finds answers, real-life answers, and not the clear-cut, no-regrets answers of cardboard stories.

As Harrington re-evaluates his life, male friendships and hunting, you will, too. It's a journey worth taking, and Harrington is an engaging guide.

Rating:
Summary: Tradition, friendship and hunting.
Review: "The Everlasting Stream" is a tale about male relationships, about self discovery and about hunting that does justice to all three subjects. While many books use one story as a vessel to carry another, this develops all three stories simultaneously and completely.

Author Walt Harrington portrays himself as a snobby Washington Post reporter who finds himself tramping around Kentucky fields, shooting rabbits with his father-in-law's hunting buddies to prove he is not above them.

Through the Thanksgiving hunts, Harrington comes to respect the men. He comes to understand himself and to wonder how he so misplaced himself. He grows up with his son and reconsiders his relationship with his late father. Through it all, he thinks deeply about the experience of hunting, turning inside out his initial revulsion to it. In the end, the hunts lead him to make a profound change in his life.

Harrington finds answers, real-life answers, and not the clear-cut, no-regrets answers of cardboard stories.

As Harrington re-evaluates his life, male friendships and hunting, you will, too. It's a journey worth taking, and Harrington is an engaging guide.

Rating:
Summary: Tradition, friendship and hunting.
Review: A thoughtful, beautifully written, almost poetic meditation on hunting, tradition, friendship, nature and human nature. It is ostensibly about rabbit hunting, but that is not where this book's meaning lies nor where the heart of its story is. Its story and meaning lie with the people, and Harrington writes in a voice so personal that you feel you know him and his family and friends. This is not a book for the PETA crowd, or for those who call rabbits "bunnies." If you've ever hunted, or if you understand the true nature of Nature, you'll enjoy The Everlasting Stream. (Note: This review has been written by a woman who, although she does not hunt, has shot the occasional rabbit when its depredations in her garden have become intolerable and the Hav-a-Hart trap proved ineffectual.)

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating look at life and being a man
Review: Having married an African-American woman, journalist Walt Harrington found himself expected to maintain the family traditions by going rabbit hunting with his father-in-law, and his friends, every Thanksgiving. At first, Walt looked down on these course, back-country men as throwbacks to an earlier, more primitive way of life. With time, though, he came to realize that these men shared a different, stronger bond than he had ever known. Unconsciously, they showed him what being a man could be all about, and he learned many lessons as he (and later him and his son) hunted rabbits in the hills of Kentucky.

This book came as quite a surprise to me. I tripped across it by accident, and am quite glad that I did. It's written in a stream-of-consciousness style, which allows the author to skip forward and backward through time, showing his development throughout. Indeed, if you are interested in men's books (such as those by Robert Bly), then I highly recommend that you get this one. It is a fascinating look at life and being a man.