When poet and longtime fly-fishing guide Chris Dombrowski encountered the Montana wilderness as a 19-year-old, it was love at first sight. The River You Touch: Making a Life on Moving Water is both his passionate ode to the beauty of the western land that for him "became my True North," and an intimate memoir of the joys and challenges of pursuing his artistic vocation amid the demands of a growing family.
Casting off in what he calls "this boat made of words," Dombrowski, currently assistant director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana, looks back through 16 years on the birth of his son, Luca, and his daughters, Molly and Lily Mae. With each new addition to the family, the stress on Dombrowski and his wife, Mary, ratchets up, as the income from his guiding, writing instruction, and part-time job as development director at a homeless shelter, combined with her kindergarten teaching, barely stretches to cover each month's bills, sending him out into the woods to hunt for game to help feed the family and complicating his efforts to work at his writing craft.
But for all his admirable candor about his family's persistent economic insecurity, Dombrowski (Body of Water: A Sage, a Seeker, and the World's Most Alluring Fish) doesn't drown in self-pity. Frequently, and gratefully, he raises his eyes to his breathtaking surroundings. He also shares some entertaining tales of his encounters with his friend, the late novelist, poet and outdoorsman, Jim Harrison. Dombrowski is a natural storyteller, and The River You Touch is filled with exemplary stories of nature. --Harvey Freedenberg, freelance reviewer