Thanks to Rebecca McCarthy--writer and friend of teacher and author Norman Maclean--readers are afforded a profoundly intimate glimpse into the life of an enigmatic man who became most notable for his exquisitely rendered novella, A River Runs Through It.

Literary success arrived late for Maclean. In 1976, when he was in his 70s and an already retired professor of English literature, Maclean launched a second career as a published author via A River Runs Through It and Other Stories. The title story of the collection is set in early 20th-century Montana, and offers a fictionalized account of Maclean's formative years and his relationship with Paul, his "glittering, doomed younger brother, whom he loved but couldn't help and who was murdered." The collection has sold close to two million copies worldwide, and the title story gained additional acclaim after it was adapted into an Academy Award-winning feature film directed by Robert Redford.

Many admirers of the novella and film might be surprised to learn that Maclean, a deeply private man, was burdened with guilt over his brother's death that prevented him from writing the story for almost 40 years. But through McCarthy's expansive narrative that merges her own personal experiences with an in-depth biography of Maclean, she traces the tributary-like forces that congregated to shape the course of the storyteller's life.

Born in Clarinda, Iowa, in 1902, Maclean and his family migrated to Montana in 1909. He was homeschooled by the guiding influences of his admired and deeply religious parents: his mother, Clara, was social and philanthropic; his literature-loving father, John, a devout minister, believed that man's chief end was to "glorify God and to enjoy Him forever," while also espousing the virtues instilled by fly-fishing--"the art that is performed on a four-count rhythm between ten and two o'clock." Thus, Maclean spent a lifetime as a literature lover and a "practicing" fisherman.

In 1928, when Maclean and his wife, Jessie, moved east so he could teach at the University of Chicago, Hyde Park would become his own family's permanent home. As a campus legend and "celebrated as a formidable English teacher," his academic career took him away from Montana, but his heart and soul remained rooted in those early, formative years. He remained passionate about Montana and spent many months every year at his family's rustic cottage on Seeley Lake. Later in life, he worked hard to save and preserve its natural wilds.

The first half of McCarthy's book details her personal quest to become a poet and how--through that passion--she met Maclean, an "older and lonely widower" in 1972. That summer, 16-year-old McCarthy traveled from her family's home in South Carolina to Seeley Lake, where her cherished brother, John, served with the US Forest Service.

While staying with John and his family, McCarthy dined with "Dr. Maclean," who expressed a sincere, personal interest in the young, aspiring poet, showing great respect in discussing writing and literature with her. Afterward, Maclean took McCarthy under his wing and even shared his work-in-progress, "USFS 1919." This story--included in A River Runs Through It and Other Stories; Maclean was working on the collection at this time--details his experiences as a teenager in the early Forest Service. A bond was forged between these two writers, generations apart, as Maclean encouraged McCarthy in her work and mentored her, convincing her to attend the University of Chicago. Maclean would become a critic for McCarthy's work, "gently suggesting changes, praising words and lines he liked, and teasing" about her shortcomings.

As they became friends, she was privy to the high standards of his work ethic--as a perfectionist, he expected much of himself, and of others as well. Maclean's love of--and sensitivity toward--language, literature, good writing, and poetry fostered his reverence for Shakespeare and the Romantics. He passed on this enthusiasm to students, who lined up to take his courses. It also contributed to the many enriching and loyal friendships Maclean made with influential notables in academia--those who, for decades, became trusted confidants and socially connected friends with him and his loving partner and wife, Jessie, who died of cancer in her 60s.

The witness McCarthy presents is supplemented by meticulous research, letters, and interviews that capture a well-rounded portrait of Maclean. She posits that in his Chicago life, Maclean "cultivated a persona for himself... a lone wolf from the mountains of Montana, where men were men. This Norman Maclean was a plainspoken, truth-telling, profanity-spouting, chain-smoking tough guy, whose deadpan delivery could silence departmental meetings and whose stare could quiet a room of chattering students. Those who didn't know Norman well were afraid of him."

McCarthy, however, grew to understand him and his vulnerabilities very well. Maclean was an ordinary man who was a great home cook and liked to drink. Meditative, he suffered bouts of self-doubt and debilitating depression, and endured many physical infirmities. The persistence of lingering writer's block stifled his academic and literary output and even snuffed out his dedicated, decades-long efforts on two nonfiction books that were left unfinished, about Custer and Little Big Horn, and about the 1949 Mann Gulch, Montana, wildfire that became one of the deadliest firefighting disasters in American history. (That book, Young Men and Fire, was ultimately published posthumously.)

The latter sections of the book that celebrate the fruits of Maclean's writing labors--the arduous, circuitous route A River Runs Through It and Other Stories traveled to publication, its ripe reception, and how the title story was beautifully adapted into an award-winning film--will be as rewarding "a happy ending" to readers as it was to Maclean himself. Tragedy and art shaped Maclean's profound life, and his writing ultimately kept him alive. McCarthy, in her thorough, deep-dive into this myth of a man--and the influence he and his writing had on her life and the lives of others--is equally exceptional in preserving his legacy. --Kathleen Gerard

Rebecca McCarthy (photo: Clara McCarthy)

Rebecca McCarthy spent 21 years as an award-winning reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Her work has been published in the New York Times, the American Scholar, and Fast Company, among other outlets. Norman Maclean: A Life in Letters and Rivers (University of Washington Press, May 14, 2024) examines Maclean's life and writing. His most famous work is A River Runs Through It, a beloved novella that was later adapted for the screen. McCarthy's book traces the role Maclean played in her life--she met him when she was 16 years old, while summering in Seeley Lake, Mont. She later became his student at the University of Chicago, and the two maintained a lifelong friendship.

This book has been 30 years in the making.

It wasn't a continual effort because I had a full-time job and a family. When Norman died in 1990, our mutual friend Gwin Kolb (his colleague and my former professor at the University of Chicago) told me I had to start interviewing colleagues in the English department before "they lost all their marbles," so I did. I never thought seriously about writing a book about Norman until Gwin insisted that I get busy.

How did you approach the material?

I gathered string on Norman as best I could--tracing his ancestors; his early years in Clarinda, Iowa; learning about early 20th-century Montana and Missoula; and Norman's time at Dartmouth, where he studied creative writing and later taught before going to Chicago.

You consulted with many who knew Maclean personally.

I would call and write to Norman's colleagues and friends and former students, all of whom would suggest other people to speak with, and I visited Chicago as often as possible to do interviews and later, to peruse Norman's papers at the University of Chicago Library. I also knew Maclean's daughter, Jean, and her husband, Joel, a professor at the U of Chicago. While writing the book, I talked with--and wrote to--them regularly.

How did this book end up being published by the University of Washington Press?

An editor from the University of Washington Press read an essay about Norman that I had written for the American Scholar and wrote to ask if I'd thought about writing a biography. Things moved rather quickly after that.

The book is a biography of Maclean and also documents your own personal experiences with him as a mentor and friend. What inspired you to structure the narrative to comprise both aspects?

I was a witness, and sometimes a participant, to pieces of his life. I realized the only way to let the reader see, hear, and get to know Norman was to show him as I saw him, living his life: mixing a hot drink, walking in Hyde Park and the forest preserves, laughing with good friend Larry Kimpton (chancellor at the U of Chicago and an administrator on the Manhattan Project in the development of the first atomic bomb), reading a poem, casting on a river.... His thousands of letters also reveal a lot about him--and they sound just like him.

You knew Maclean before and after his great literary accomplishments. Did success change him?

After A River Runs Through It and Oher Stories was published, Norman could think of himself as the writer he always wanted to be. Perhaps he got more fat-headed, but I always felt he was entitled to it.

Did you draw inspiration from any other published memoirs in order to write your own?

James Boswell's Life of Johnson is the greatest witnessed book about another person. My former professor Gwin Kolb recommended Writing Lives by Leon Edel. A great book is River of the Gods by Candice Millard--very inspiring, very meticulous, with a perfect tone.

What was the most difficult part of writing the book?

Finishing. At some point, you have to cut bait.

What was the most fulfilling part of the writing the book?

My husband converted a little-used screen porch into a small office for me so I could have a private, calmer place to work, away from children and animals.

That's a bonus! Were you surprised by anything you learned along the way?

I never realized how self-critical Norman was. Many of his colleagues reported how he was as hard on himself as he was on others. His research on Custer and Little Big Horn never yielded the book he wanted to write--he eventually set the project aside. I also learned he was intimidated by Ronald Crane, the literary critic who founded the Chicago School of Literary Criticism. Norman couldn't write the kind of stuff that Crane and his other colleagues at Chicago wrote; he had to devise a new genre and find his own way to write A River Runs Through It. I have to note: more people today read Norman Maclean than Ronald Crane.

The story of A River Runs Through It changed Maclean's life. How has writing this book changed your life?

For the last 10 years, Norman was a constant figure in my dreams, urging me to "Hurry up, Rebecca." I have a much greater appreciation for biographies because it's hard to make sense of one's own life, much less another's.

If there is an afterlife, describe what you might picture to be Maclean's idea of heaven and eternity?

I think it would be a classroom in Cobb Hall at U of Chicago, with adequate heat and chairs, filled with bright students from the Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, or from a Shakespeare course, and there's a very lively conversation going on with Norman talking a bit and listening intently. After class, he walks outside, and he's among the tamaracks in Seeley Lake, and his parents (Clara, his mother, has made huckleberry and chokecherry jam for him) and Larry and Mary Kimpton (life-long, dear friends) and Jesse (Maclean's wife) and their children and grandchildren are waiting for him... and Paul (his brother) is standing in the Blackfoot River, fishing. --Kathleen Gerard