Should the Tent Be Burning Like That?

For more than twenty years, Bill Heaveya three-time National Magazine Award finalisthas staked a claim as one of Americas best writers. In feature stories and his Field & Stream column A Sportsmans Life, as well as other publications, he has taken readers across the country and beyond to experience his triumphs and failures as a suburban dad who happens to love hunting and fishing. Should the Tent Be Burning Like That? gathers together a wide range of Heaveys best work. He nearly drowns attempting to fish the pond inside the cloverleaf off an Interstate Highway four miles from the White House. He rents and crashes a forty-four-foot houseboat on a river in Florida. On a manic weeklong deer archery hunt in Ohio, he finds it necessary to practice by shooting arrows into his motel rooms phonebook (the blunt penetrates all the way to page 358, "KITCHEN CABINETREFACING & REFINISHING"). Accompanying a shaggy steelhead fanaticMikey, who has no job or fixed address but owns four boatson a thousand-mile odyssey up and down the California coast in search of fishable water, he comes to see Mikey as a purer soul than almost anyone he has ever met.Whatever the subject, Heaveys tales are odes to the notion that enthusiasm is more important than skill, and a testament to the enduring power of the natural world. Whether hes hunting mule deer in Montana, draining cash on an overpriced pistol, or ruminating on the joys and agonies of outdoor gear, Heavey always entertains and enlightens with honesty and wit.