Salmon Fishing in the Yemen
Paul Torday, . . Harcourt, $24 (333pp) ISBN 978-0-15-101276-3
In Torday's winningly absurdist debut, Dr. Alfred Jones feels at odds with his orderly life as a London fisheries scientist and husband to the career-driven Mary, with whom he shares a coldly dispassionate relationship. Just as Mary departs for a protracted assignment in Geneva, Alfred gets consulted on a visionary sheik's scheme to introduce salmon, and salmon-angling, to the country of Yemen. Alfred is deeply skeptical (salmon are cold-water fish that spawn in fresh water; Yemen is hot and largely desert), but the project gains traction when Peter Maxwell, the prime minister's director of communications, seizes on it as a PR antidote to negative press related to the Iraq war. Alfred is pressed by his superiors to meet with the sheik's real estate rep, the glamorous young Harriet, and embarks on a yearlong journey to realize the sheik's vision of spiritual peace through fly-fishing for the people of Yemen. British businessman and angler Torday captures Alfred's emerging humanity, Maxwell's antic solipsism, Mary's calculating neediness and Harriet's vulnerability, presenting their voices through diaries, e-mails, letters and official interviews conducted after the doomed venture's surprisingly tragic outcome.
Reviewed on: 02/19/2007
Genre: Fiction
Downloadable Audio - 978-1-4561-2841-8
Hardcover - 323 pages - 978-0-297-85158-5
Open Ebook - 352 pages - 978-0-547-41625-0
Open Ebook - 352 pages - 978-0-297-85708-2
Paperback - 352 pages - 978-0-15-603456-2
Paperback - 329 pages - 978-1-78022-190-8
Paperback - 416 pages - 978-89-475-2867-2