What begins as an act of endurance can become something far more dangerous—and far more revealing. The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly by Lewis K. Schrager
Beneath the vast skies of Alaska, The Radical Radiance of the Fishing Fly by Lewis K. Schrager presents a story where solitude, obsession, and secrecy converge, drawing its protagonist into circumstances he never anticipated.
Illness becomes the catalyst for transformation when cancer reshapes the bond between two brothers. During treatment, Larry Nichols endures uncertainty by tying fishing flies and imagining waters alive with movement, using creativity as a lifeline. After surviving, he invites David—whose life is defined by logic and predictability—on a fishing expedition that challenges his emotional boundaries.
Surrounded by deeply committed anglers, David feels disconnected, uncertain how to navigate a world driven by passion rather than restraint. Long-standing tensions between the brothers resurface, exposing emotional fractures shaped by fear and responsibility. David is also drawn to Kathy Sands, a fellow member of the fishing party marked by personal tragedy, whose quiet presence complicates his guarded worldview.
The journey culminates in a covert nighttime mission fueled by revenge. In that moment, David must navigate loyalty, fear, and desire, confronting the limits of reason and the cost of emotional detachment.
Excerpt:
I pulled out of the underground garage onto Wisconsin Avenue, then down the ramp heading east on the Washington Beltway. Rays of the rising sun glowed orange in a far-off bank of clouds. Gray banks of night fog, exhaled from dying creeks and streams entrapped within the urban sprawl, drifted over the roadway bridges before dissipating as rising haze over the slim remains of vestigial marshland. I turned onto I-95 North, speeding past countless semis parked close along the shoulders of the highway, red running lights blinking crazy in the half-light. I imagined the truckers awakening in their dark, coffin-like spaces, yawning and stretching and rubbing their eyes as they plan for another day bringing who-knows-what to who-knows-where.
Wondering where I was going.
Wondering why.
In fact, I knew. My destination on that steamy August morning was the Philadelphia airport, a rendezvous with my older brother Larry. In less than three hours I would be meeting him there. We would board our plane to Seattle, and then another to Anchorage, and then a third and a fourth, our destination somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness for a week of fly fishing.
The first rays of the freshly risen sun flared above the distant cloudbank. I squinted against the blinding glare, lowered my sun visor, fumbled with my sunglasses, and slipped them on.
This was a bad idea.
I was nervous about spending this much time with Larry. Growing up, he was brash and loud, determined to be the center of attention. I was quiet, more than happy to disappear into the background, unnoticed and undisturbed. This worked out fine when we were apart. On the few occasions where we found ourselves thrown together, like at an occasional high school party, he’d notice my subtle signals of embarrassment at his behavior and would talk more loudly, act more wildly, dance more crazily, until I shrunk away into a kind of nothingness and headed home on my own. I could never even think of taking him on physically when he pushed me past my breaking point as he was taller and far stronger than I, and a champion wrestler as well.
I tried to convince myself that this fishing trip would work out fine. So much had changed since our high school days. Larry had become a successful businessman, having grown Leather and More, our father’s store in South Philly to three times its original size. He’d expanded the business, establishing a second store in the Mall at Short Hills, a prime shopping destination in the tony New Jersey suburbs just west of New York City. He’d married Tina Simons, a wonderful woman who gave him a couple of lovely daughters. He’d mellowed.
Besides, I realized that all this cogitation was irrelevant. Mellowed or not, I never would have agreed to go on this trip if not for Larry’s cancer
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Author Q&A
What’s a detail, theme, or clue in your book that most readers might miss on the first read—but you secretly hope someone notices?
The importance of appreciating the humanity in “others”. Our society is currently terribly divided. The general discourse, running from casual posts on social media sites to the language of our country’s leaders, too often is overtly, aggressively, dehumanizing – and seems to be getting worse each day. The consequences can be grave, leading to bigotry, violence, and even killings. This wasn’t the case when I wrote the book, (I first drafted this in ~2005). The initial title of the book was The Secret River. When I discovered that there was a Booker Prize finalist book with this name, I decided to change the title. The current title unexpectedly brought to my mind a focus on how something like a work of art (in this case, expertly hand-tied fishing flies) that could be appreciated by persons across economic, educational, and socio-political backgrounds could serve to serve to bridge societal schisms and help us appreciate others as fully “human,” with many of the same desires, and fears, as we hold ourselves.
When did this story or idea “click” into place for you—was there a single moment you knew you had to write it?
Great question - yes, there was such a moment. While this story is mostly fictional, the foundation is based in reality (as is true for most realistic, literary fiction, I think). My younger brother developed Hodgkin’s disease and was cured by a bone marrow transplantation. He was a passionate fisherman and, like the Larry character, tied beautiful flies while suffering through his transplantation, promising himself a trip to Alaska if he survived. He did survive, and invited me to go along, which I did, reluctantly. The “click” you refer to has to do with the circumstances surrounding the loss of his flies, and their subsequent recovery. This part of the book – how the flies were left behind in the Anchorage airport, how my brother went kind of crazy when he learned about this after we arrived in our distant village, how I came up with the story of one of the fishermen having a heart attack and needing the medicines left behind in his bag and threatened the airline with this, resulting in the delivery of his bag with his flies, and the bags of the other fishermen as well – actually happened. This was the “click.” The rest, particularly any of the story involving Kathy and Angie (there were no women on our trip) I mostly made up.
Which character or real-life person surprised you the most while writing this book, and why?
This is a tough one. Many of the characters I named above progressed, and changed, along different arcs. In terms of who “surprised me” the most…perhaps Kathy. She was the empath; she sensed David’s inner turmoil and reached out to him, even though he was a stranger to her. Although she projected a personality of tolerance and accommodation, she also had a no-bullshit side of her. This came through early, when she had the guts to approach the hunters and tell them to put out their cigars in the hotel restaurant. This also came through when she decided to join Rick Garret, Zack, Butch, and Larry on their naked, midnight attack on the hunters’ camp – and demanded that David join her in this, saying that “sometimes revenge is therapeutic.” I really liked Kathy.
If your book had a soundtrack, what three songs would be on it and what scenes or moments would they pair with?
Wow. I’m going to show my age here.
1. Muddy Waters - Rollin’ Stone (Catfish Blues) - pp. 68-69, when David and Kathy return to the hotel dining room and find all the fishermen sitting around, gloomy at the prospect of having to go on the trip without their equipment.
2. The Doors - Riders on the Storm – pp.201-203 – When the raiding party crosses the river in the moonlight to attack the hunters’ camp.
3. Crosby, Stills, and Nash - Wasted on the Way - p.212-213 - As they ride the last stretch of river, when everyone fishes in the warm sunshine. (I’d like to talk about more…)
What’s one belief, question, or emotional truth you hope readers carry with them long after they finish your book?
That “people are people” - fundamentally with the same set of desires and concerns (broadly written) - living, loving, dying. It’s easy to forget this and be distracted by various influences to view others as threatening and different. It’s more difficult to appreciate the similarities in others - with the most fundamental one being their existence as a human being. Sometimes, something as simple as appreciation for radically radiant fishing flies can serve as a reminder.
Tell us about a moment during the writing process when the story (or message) took an unexpected turn.
In an earlier draft, the scene on pp. 122-123, when David discovers Kathy bathing in the river and declines her invitation to join, had a different outcome. In the earlier draft, Kathy strode out of the water feeling angry, embarrassed, and hurt. It took about 40 pages of additional story for them to overcome this. Later, as I got to “know Kathy better,” I realized that this really wasn’t who Kathy was. I revised this and had her emerge from the river, nonplussed, and place a cold kiss on David’s forehead, before drying herself and getting dressed. This was the true Kathy…and also allowed me to cut 40 pages from the novel!
If your protagonist (or the central figure in your nonfiction) could give the reader one piece of advice, what would it be?
Avoid making character assumptions of people based on social, economic, educational, and cultural differences; there may be more similarities between you and “the other” than you may realize.
What real-world place, object, or memory helped shape a key element in your book?
The key place was the Alaskan wilderness, particularly the river that my brother and I traveled on and the little village in which we stayed (I call it Nalunaq; the actual village was Aniak) during the trip upon which this fictional story is based. I should add that the second real place is NYC in the wake of the 9/11 attack.
What’s something you had to research, learn, or experience to write this book that genuinely shocked you?
Not a whole lot “shocks” me – but I guess I’d say the intensity of the fly fishing subculture. The guys who were on the trip took fly fishing VERY seriously - sometimes comically so (to an outsider, like myself). As an example, the scene on pp. 143-149, fishing in a driving cold rain at the “Moan and Groan Hole”, actually happened. Everything was real, up to the point where Russ slipped into the river. (I still get the chills thinking about that day.)
If your book were invited to join a shelf with three other titles, which ones would make you happiest—and what would that shelf say about your story?
It’s going to be hard to answer this without sounding grandiose. Please cut me some slack here.
1. In Our Time (Ernest Hemingway);
2. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje);
3. The Things they Carried (Tim O’Brien).
Including these novels on the shelf (and I was pained to exclude books by Graham Green and Reynolds Price) is that writing an engaging, page-turning story, and writing a book that has a kind of rhythmic resonance to it, are not necessarily mutually exclusive. I’ve read compelling stories that “sound” like a stone knocking on a rotted log – these can do well in the marketplace, but I don’t enjoy reading them. Similarly, “writer-first” stories, which are all about the writing with no compelling narrative (and, sometimes, no narrative at all) also are not interesting for me to read; they seem pretentious and, if I’m being honest, arrogant. I have found the books I’ve listed extraordinarily beautiful to read, while they also pull me along in their engaging, powerful stories. I can’t say I’ve achieved this in Radical Radiance...but I’ve tried as best I could.
#TheRadicalRadianceOfTheFishingFly #LewisKSchrager #slowburnfiction #psychologicaltension #literaryvibes #quietintensity #characterstudy #literarytone #emotionalconflict #quietreads #booktour #kindleunlimited
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