For anyone who has for decades wanted to write a book, the writer Norman Maclean serves as an inspiration. The acclaimed author of A River Runs Through It and other stories didn’t publish fiction until he reached his 70s, and his debut went on to sell more than two million copies and inspired the 1992 Oscar Award-winning film by Robert Redford.
Rebecca McCarthy is the Athens-based author of Norman Maclean: A Life of Letters and Rivers. In it, she writes about the Maclean that she knew and the Maclean that she found through her research. She’s a former journalist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and currently a Flagpole contributor.
Peter Biello: You met Norman Maclean late in his life when you were both in Montana. He split his time while he was teaching between the University of Chicago and Montana. Tell us how you met him.
Rebecca McCarthy: I was introduced to him by my brother, my oldest brother, John, in Seely Lake, where John was working for the Forest Service. He was in charge of recreation on the Seely Lake Ranger District and had met Norman a couple of years before because one of John’s duties was tending to the people who had leased land from the Forest Service around Seely Lake. And Norman was one of those summer people who did that.
PB: Now, as you write in this book, Norman Maclean and his father—early in his life, his father was his writing tutor and would make him write essays and then whittle them down until they were more concise. And then he’d throw them away when they were done. And you, as a young writer, had a sort of mentor relationship with him where he would critique your work. What was that experience like for you?
RM: Terrifying. I mean, I just didn’t want to disappoint Norman. The paper I wrote for him that he really took me to task on was about a Browning poem, and I should have picked another Victorian poet because…
PB: He loved Robert Browning.
RM: He loved Browning, and his parents were in the Browning Society. But he was right. I didn’t do the research on the poem and I didn’t make my paper, as he said, something of distinction.
PB: And you were how old at the time?
RM: 19.
PB: 19. So you were already in college then?
RM: Yeah, I had started college at 17. So I decided to up my game and take it pretty seriously.
PB: So he taught at the University of Chicago. But he wasn’t your teacher there?
RM: No, no. He had retired by the time I got there. Yeah, he taught there from ’28 ‘til ’73. So he did a lot of teaching and had a lot of students.
PB: What can you tell us about him as a teacher?
RM: Oh, he was phenomenal. The people I spoke to who had him—I mean, he was life-altering. Scientists who had never read Shakespeare became Shakespeare devotees. The University of Chicago gives out an award called the Quantrell Teaching Award, and it’s given by undergraduate students. People vote. Norman’s the only person who got it three times. I mean, he was terrifying—and he was beloved.
PB: You knew him while he was working on A River Runs Through It. Yes?
RM: Yeah.
PB: What did you know about what he was feeling as he was working through that story? And I should mention that it was—if you’re not familiar with it, it seems very autobiographical for him. It’s about a pair of brothers. The brother named Paul mimics the brother he had, [also named] Paul who died—was killed—and who likely had a gambling problem. So it’s an autobiographical story and perhaps a difficult story for him to write, emotionally. But tell us, what did you know about his state of mind as he was working on that story?
RM: I knew nothing. I mean, he wasn’t very revelatory. I was a kid. I believe he read parts of the story to my brother and sister-in-law, which would have been in 19—the early ’70s while she was still alive. I know that one time he read me part of it and said—you know, he would just kind of end up and go, “Well, darling, that’s it.” I mean, he was wrapped really tightly. He did not talk about his own emotions. So—but I do know when he finished, he read it to Jean and Joel, his daughter and son-in-law. And then he could cry for his brother. So I think—I don’t know his state of mind, but I think it was a great relief for him to speak publicly about his brother. And yeah, there are autobiographical pieces in that story, but it’s not an autobiography.
PB: Right. It’s fiction.
RM: Yeah.
PB: He did attempt to write nonfiction before A River Runs Through It. He wanted to write about Custer and the Battle of Little Bighorn, but he never did finish that.
RM: No.
PB: How did he make that transition from wanting to write about history to then wanting to write about roughly himself in fiction?
RM: He really didn’t know exactly what he wanted to say about Custer. [What] Norman wanted to explore was how someone who lost a battle, obviously, would end up in that famous picture—maybe you’ve seen it. It’s a picture that shows Custer leading the charge, and the Indians and all these dead Indians and cavalrymen on the ground. It was—Norman said it was in every bar from Seattle to Bangor. He became this hero through defeat. And he wanted to explore: Why did we do that? Was that an American thing?
PB: Well, based on both your personal relationship with him and the vast amount of research you’ve done about his life, what would you hope people remember about him?
RM: He was a very compassionate writer. I don’t know. He was a very, very complicated person. You know, he was wrapped really tightly, but at the same time, he was—his traits are he was compassionate, and he was curious, very curious about other people. And he would go, you know, you would tell him something, and he would take off his glasses and bite one of the arms and go, “No kidding.” He was just—I’ve never met anybody like him. Nobody.
This story comes to Flagpole through a reporting partnership with GPB News, a nonprofit newsroom covering the state of Georgia.
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