The Old Man And The Boy by Robert Ruark

 

The Old Man And The Boy by Robert Ruark is written in the south, about the south during the Depression so there is the language of the south of that time. It's not overt or intentional. Just how people talked at that time and place. If that is going to be a hang up you can skip it. No big. 

That said, this felt like a housewarming gift from coastal North Carolina. At the end of this day it much more than a story about a boy growing up, in the south (specifically the area around Wilmington, NC) and learning the ways of the outdoors from his grandfather. We see a young man become a solid individual as the old man wears down. Lessons are learned on the game trails and in the currents of the salty world. 

My coworker recommended it as a alternative to Thomas Wolfe or William Faulkner and he was right. You're going to get the sentimentality of both, but Ruark keeps his focus on the story and lets the characters to the rambling and ambling. Metaphors and lengthy paragraphs are for Faulkner and Wolfe, where Ruark falls towards the Hemingway side of things. Fitting since most of Ruark's printed work comes in the form of hunting narratives from his time in Africa. Men of action like Ruark, Hemingway, and you could even say Larry McMurtry, have things to do. No time can be wasted with you have guns to oil, lines to mend, and oars to carve. 

Similar Authors 

James Agee- for his sense of family and relationships within. In reality, Ruark's family was much more like an Agee novel, but that dynamic of bonding with your family is heavy in both writer's works

Terry Kay- Ruark is much softer in the family department than Kay and Agee but several of Kay's novels are set in this Edenic South where we hunt and fish all day. Both Ruark and Kay can send us to a time when men wore hats like it was yesterday. 

Similar Reads

Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry- Berry captures the sense of place and the people. Ruark captures the people and the sense of place. They are opposite sides of the same coin slowly flipping to see who gets first swig of the moonshine. 

The Summer Land by Burke Davis- Wheere Ruark crows up hunting and fishing in the swamps, marshes and sea of coastal North Carolina, Davis grows up in the thicket, humidity, and rivers of the Carolina Piedmont. Still, we get to see boys become men in the outdoors and in the south most of the rest of the world thinks still exist.