Canoes, oranges, flood control. Not exactly the stuff of bestsellers. But in the mind of the story-teller John McPhee, they all come to life. He wrote a book about rocks that won him a Pulitzer Prize.
In his latest work, “The Founding Fish,” McPhee elevates the American Shad, a most unlikely protagonist, to the level of national icon. A non-fiction book about a fish? How dry. But our terminally mediocre angler baits his hook with tales of the Shad in the American Revolution, and its death-defying race to spawn in the headwaters of the Delaware.
He lands us with his own stories of the ones he cooks, and the ones that get away, all written in prose as clear as the Crystal River. Spinning fish tales with John McPhee, schoolmaster of narrative journalism.
Guests:
John McPhee, writer for “The New Yorker” and author of “The Founding Fish”