From the highly acclaimed author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts comes a collection of alternately playful and exquisite essays--including seven collected here for the first time--borne of a lifetime spent fishing.

"Thomas McGuane writes about fishing better than anyone else in the history of mankind." --Jim Harrison, New York Times bestselling author of Legends of the Fall

The forty extraordinary pieces in The Longest Silence take the reader from the tarpon of Florida to the salmon of Iceland, from the bonefish of Mexico to the trout of Montana. They introduce characters as varied as a highly literate Canadian frontiersman and a devoutly Mormon river guide and address issues ranging from the esoteric art of tying flies to the enduring philosophy of a seventeenth-century angler to the trials of the aging fisherman.

Both reverent and hilarious by turns, and infused with a deep experience of wildlife and the outdoors, The Longest Silence sets the heart pounding for a glimpse of moving water and demonstrates what dedication to sport reveals about life.