Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
They're in the River (Picador Shorts)

They're in the River (Picador Shorts)

McPhee, John

Paperback

Series: Picador Shorts

AgricultureEnvironmental StudiesMarine Life

Publisher Price: $15.00

ISBN10: 1250391288
ISBN13: 9781250391285
Publisher: Picador USA
Published: Jun 10 2025
Pages: 96
Weight: 0.15
Height: 0.50 Width: 5.10 Depth: 7.60
Language: English

A master chronicler of American life introduces us to the iconic and most curious American shad.

A pithy, humorous, and illuminating standalone extract from John McPhee's twenty-sixth book, The Founding Fish.

McPhee, himself a shad fisherman, recounts the fascinating life and ways of this great American wayfarer, most famous for its Odyssean journey as it leaves the ocean in crowds of millions, running heroic distances up America's rivers to spawn.

McPhee introduces us to the habits and haunts of the American shad. We follow it along its spawning run, learning about its curious life cycle, biology, quirks, and mythology among fly fishermen. He opens with a tall tale about his long vigil with a giant roe shad on the line. Night falls, a crowd gathers on a nearby bridge to watch and still the fish refuses to roll over; however embellished, it's a comic story. He fishes and visits the laboratories of famous ichthyologists; he takes instruction in the making of shad darts from a master of the art; he delivers a moving treatise on the particular sound that is unique to every river. In the process, he creates a portrait of America's great waterways and of one of their most storied residents.

They're in the River is part of the Picador Shorts series Oceans, Rivers, and Streams in which excerpts from beloved classics speak to our relationship with our water bodies, great and small.

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