Author to share Montana stories at Paradise Center

What the reader notices first about John N. Maclean’s 2021 book, Home Waters, is the exceptional craft that went into the production of the book itself. An amber rendition of a day’s last light on the Blackfoot River graces the cover. An accessible map of the Maclean family’s Montana adventures, from Mann Gulch to Dixon, is printed as end pieces. Most striking are the many detailed wood engravings completed by Wesley W. Bates. Some divide the sections of the book, such as one portraying the family cabin at Seeley Lake and another the First Presbyterian Church in Missoula, the congregation that brought Rev. J.N. Maclean and his clan to this part of Montana. The opening page of each chapter contains smaller engravings of some of the flies preferred by this famous family of fly fishermen.

John N. Maclean is, of course, the grandson of Rev. J.N. Maclean and the son of Norman Maclean, whose succinct book, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, inspired the movie of the same name, drawing to the Blackfoot River countless fishermen, near and far, seeking connections with the seen and unseen dimensions of nature, their families, and themselves.

John Maclean, 30 years a diplomatic correspondent for the Chicago Tribune stationed in Washington, D.C., faced the same divided heart dilemma that afflicted his father: how to reconcile a professional life and family ties east of the Mississippi with an enduring love of Montana. The answer, addressed in a chapter titled “Two Worlds, One Cabin,” has been an annual summer return to Seeley Lake, where the family cabin has stood for 100 years amidst a forest of memories.

Subtitled “A Chronicle of Family and a River,” Home Waters reviews how the Maclean family came to Montana, how both Norman and John moved east for education and careers, and how the family became intertwined with Seeley Lake and the Blackfoot River. Episodes of fishing the Blackfoot and retracing the route of Lewis and Clark along Highway 200 add to the mix. One disturbing revelation is that, having graduated from Dartmouth, Norman was rejected for a high school teaching job in Montana. He accepted an offer from the University of Chicago instead, where he served with distinction until he retired at 70. Then, as his son recounts, “Unseen voices . . . reached out to him, pressing him, urging him on, and as he said at the end of the book, ‘he reached back to them’.” One of the stories reaching out to him, featured in A River Runs Through It, was the mysterious death of Norman’s brother, Paul, a charismatic but troubled soul. John Maclean provides more information on this enduring family tragedy.

After the typical frustrations facing a new book author, A River Runs Through It was published in 1976. (It premiered as a Robert Redford movie in 1992). Norman then turned to another manuscript, researching the tragic wildfire that consumed Mann Gulch, near the Missouri River’s Gates of the Mountain, where 13 firefighters were killed in 1949. Apparently unable to meet his own high writing standards, the book was incomplete when Norman died in 1990. The manuscript was brought to publication in 1992 by John and his sister, Jean, as Young Men and Fire.

Young Men and Fire appears to have inspired John Maclean’s interest in documenting other tragic wildfires and the lessons they hold for firefighters. He has published five books on the topic.

Home Waters is a more intimate portrait of the Maclean family and the circumstances that have produced two generations of exceptional writing. The book received an honor award from the Montana Book Award Committee, who called it “a gorgeous chronicle of a family and the land they call home.”