»And that’s exactly how it is, he says. A barbed hook is absurd. The fish has a fair chance. And if we were to catch it after all, we would set it free again. It’s only the experience that counts, not the outcome.«
Siegi Heehrmann, a graduate from the Mozarteum, a prestigious art school in Salzburg, has ended up in a provincial Upper Austrian backwater working as a music teacher for string instruments at a regional music school. His real passion, however, is reserved for something else entirely – the art of making perfect fishing bait. Being initiated into the secrets of fly-fishing by Ernstl Thalinger, his first task is learning how to tie the perfect fly-fishing lure that fish will take it for a real living being. Not only do the villagers consider Siegi and his friends to be outsiders, the local fly-fishing club also observes their activities with hostility. And doesn’t fly-fishing club chairman Volki seems to be suspiciously close to Siegi’s wife Lena?
In his debut novel, Leander Fischer develops a complex world out of fly-tying, with topics suchs as art and imitation, nature and environment as well as societal matters. The politics of Austria in the 1980s also play an important role, as does the National Socialist past, which continues to have an effect in the present day. His style captivates the reader from the very beginning, with ease and rhythm he lets the various levels of text flow into each other. The language gushes like a mountain stream, while being accurately constructed like one of the flies – an unusually strong debut.
