Other Notable Works by Howell Raines
Whiskey Man
Raines' coming-of-age novel, set in depression-era Alabama, combines
romance and tragedy to evoke a time and place distant in memory but alive
in the great tradition of American storytelling.
In 1932 in Milo, Alabama, Prohibition was on, the Depression was on, Franklin D. Roosevelt was riding the Presidential train across Alabama, and Bluenose Trogdon--a man who had a real calling for making whiskey just like his daddy before him--had devoted customers as far away as Birmingham.
Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis
Howell Raines has talked fly fishing with presidents of the United States and legends of the sport, as well as relatives, childhood friends, and his two sons. Casting deep into the waters of his tumultuous and momentous life -- his storied career at the New York Times, his painful divorce, his seven-year feud with his father, his memorable friendship with fisherman/philosopher Richard C. Blalock -- Raines offers his now-classic meditation on the "disciplined, beautiful, and unessential activity" of fly fishing and the challenges and opportunities of middle age.
A witty and profound celebration of life's transitions and the serene pleasures of the outdoors, Raines' memories and observations offer wisdom for the younger man, comfort for the older man, and rare insight for women into the often puzzling male psyche. "Hear me, my brothers," Raines says. "Anything is possible in the life of a man if he lives long enough. Even adulthood."
The One that got Away
"Lost fish," writes Howell Raines, "chasten us to the knowledge that we are all, in each and every moment, dwindling. Imagine my surprise when I discovered well into my sixth decade that losing fish can prepare us for a blessing as well as for pain."
Confronting loss -- of an elusive fish or something larger -- is at the heart of The One That Got Away,the graceful sequel to Raines's much-loved, bestselling memoir Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis,published to great acclaim in 1993. With the same winning combination of reminiscences, anecdotes, philosophy and fishing lore, his bold new memoir covers the eventful years in this latest passage of his life, and the realization that in relinquishing his former identity as a newspaperman he has actually gotten what he wanted, just in the most unlikely way.
My Soul is Rested
The almost unfathomable courage and the undying faith that propelled the Civil Rights Movement are brilliantly captured in these moving personal recollections. Here are the voices of leaders and followers, of ordinary people who became extraordinary in the face of turmoil and violence. From the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1956 to the death of Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1968, these are the people who fought the epic battle: Rosa Parks, Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, Hosea Williams, Fannie Lou Hamer, and others, both black and white, who participated in sit-ins, Freedom Rides, voter drives, and campaigns for school and university integration.