The Fisherman, by John Langan

[rachelmanija]

An old man whose wife died of cancer takes up fishing, and becomes fishing buddies with a younger man whose wife and kids died in a car crash. His friend finds a mysterious diary about a legendary fishing spot, and they drive to it. On the way they stop at a diner, where the owner tells them a very long story about the horrific history of that fishing spot. Then they go to fish it, and not unexpectedly, it does not go well.

Cosmic horror as nested tall tales by fishermen; about half or a third of the book consists of a single story-within-the-story. It's very well-written and the mythology is interesting, but I wish I'd read it without having experienced the hype around it, because while it's a good solid novel, I was not as wowed as I'd expected.

I loved the first third, which is very Stephen King-esque and mostly about grief and living anyway and making connections with other damaged people, with hints of creepiness in the background. The long diner story is objectively cool, but I really wanted to get back to the old widower. And while the weird fish he catches is an outstandingly creepy moment, the other stuff that happened felt more like just another horror story; it wasn't as original and mythic as the legendary figure of Der Fisher from the diner story or as intimate and touching as his ordinary life at the start.

It's a good book but not an outstanding one. The unusual structure didn't quite work for me - I would have liked it better as a pair of linked novellas.

Comments

[recessional]

…I mean MR James and Robert E Howard would not actually mix well. :looking at the cover blurb: Like their entire approach to weird fiction was, if not quite opposed, at least totally disconnected.

[rachelmanija]

The Robert E Howard is 100% out of left field. There's no resemblance that I noticed.

[mikeda]

Maybe the link is the cosmic horror thing? He did write a bunch of that.

[recessional]

Perhaps it was trying to reference the Cthulhu set without falling back on Lovecraft himself. xD

[rachelmanija]

I just saw a blurb for a book that said "inspired by The Lathe of Heaven and Terminator 2."

[rmc28]

So ... changing the world/future is probably involved. Deadly cyborgs optional.

[davidgillon]

That sort of reminds me that even after 40-odd years the local fishermen still hadn't forgiven my dad for blowing up their favourite fishing hole.

(The Wear dropped so low in the drought of 75/76 the only way to get fish upstream to spawn was to blow a hole in the old weir, unfortunately it was also a fishing hole.)

[rachelmanija]

Amazing. I love that story. Fishermen have long memories.