"Callum Taylor is a man adrift. Since the death of his beloved father, his own life has come undone, drained of meaning and purpose. For along with his father, a way of life has dies, that of the West Coast salmon fisherman, a life that Callum had assumed would always exist. On a bus ride between Vancouver and his childhood home at the mouth of the Fraser River, he sees a figure from his past-an eccentric fisherman names Ezra Hemsworth-and his childhood, in particular one seminal winter, comes rushing back." -- inside front flap