The Catch

''An absolute gem . . . I was delightfully lost by the river throughout'' Paul Whitehouse

''Marvellous . . . The Catch leaves both its writer and its reader wonderfully "lost in water"'' Robert Macfarlane

''Penetrating and poetic, filled with honeyed prose and thoughtful criticism'' The Times

A brilliant blend of memoir and biography, The Catch is a stunning meditation on poetry and nature, and a quiet reflection on what it means to be a father and a son.

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It is in the midst of a swirling river, casting a line, that Mark Wormald meets Ted Hughes.

He stands where the poet stood, forty years ago, because fishing was Ted Hughes''s way of breathing – and because the poet''s writing has made Mark understand that it has always been his way of breathing, too.

Using Hughes''s poetry collection River and his fishing diaries as a guide, Mark returns again and again to the rivers and lakes in Britain and Ireland where the poet fished. At times, he uses Ted''s fly patterns; at others his rods. It is an obsession; a fundamental connection to nature; a thrilling wildness; an elemental pursuit. But it is also a release and a consolation, as Mark fishes after the sudden death of his mother and during the slow fading of his father.