🎭 Culture Apr 13, 2026 · James K. Chandler

Of Nature, Art and Grace: On Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It

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Of Nature, Art and Grace: On Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It

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Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It turns fifty this year. Its author was a retired English professor from the University of Chicago who, at the point late in life when he began work on the book, had published only a handful of essays in literary criticism. The University of Chicago Press took a flier on a manuscript set in Western Montana that, as the legend goes, was turned down by several major New York publishers because it had “trees in it.”
The book got an early boost when it was revi