Publisher's Synopsis
When the intensities of family life become too much for eight-year-old Art, it is to Old Hector that he turns for comfort. Thwarted from fulfilling his burning desire to go to the River, he seeks out the old man who can still poach a salmon with the best when he chooses. Through Old Hector's tales and his own experiences, Young Art learns about the painful business of growing up. This is one of the finest evocations of childhood ever written, conveying all the magic and misery and the bursting joys of being a small boy in a great and mysterious world.
