His family had emigrated from Scotland to North America. Maclean’s grandfather and namesake, Rev. John Norman Maclean, was a Presbyterian minister who first migrated to Iowa from Nova Scotia.

Like the book of Genesis, Home Waters is about the passing of generations. Before entering academia, Norman Mclean worked for the U.S. The cabin first built by Maclean’s grandfather draws the author back, serving as both reference point and compass. But Montana’s rivers were always home, too. Fly-fishing, and Montana itself, have never been quite the same.Īs a child, John Maclean was raised in the Windy City while his father taught literature at the University of Chicago. Robert Redford brought it to life on the screen as director, with Craig Sheffer playing Norman. Maclean’s father, Norman Fitzroy Mclean, wrote the best-selling novella at 70 after decades as a professor in Chicago. Maclean also seeks to set the record straight on the death of his uncle, Paul Maclean, portrayed by Brad Pitt in in the film version of A River Runs Through It. The expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark receives more than a brief mention.

In Home Waters, the former foreign editor for the Chicago Tribune turned outdoors author shares glimpses of his own story together with the history of Montana and the rivers of America’s West. Sunlight dances atop waters even as the day ebbs. Along the way, we learn of fishing rods, matching flies to hatch, and landing trout. In his sixth book, John Norman Maclean offers a tender tribute to his famous fly-fishing father, to his deep sense of family, the passage of time, and the virtues of both patience and restlessness.

Paul mclean a river runs through it