Books
David Joy has published one memoir currently in print and recently finished work on a second. Check back often for updates on publication and developments on his second memoir as well as ongoing projects
Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey
Growing Gills: A Fly Fisherman's Journey delves into David Joy's obsession with fish. With a closer connection to fish than to humans, the author works to reveal why he is inherently defined by the piscine world. Topics range from environmentalism to family, Rousseau's "noble savage" to the ones that got away, places that remain wild to the worn cork of rods, the beauty of native trout to the art of fly tying. Ultimately, by revealing the reasons for his obsession, David is able to understand the man he has become.
Ron Rash, author of the 2009 PEN/Faulkner finalist Serena, had this to say about the memoir: "If any human could grow gills, it would be David Joy. His life-long connection to fish is vividly realized in this book, in large part because of his poetic language and sensibility. Growing Gills is a book anyone interested in our connection to the natural world will relish...[To read more on Growing Gills click here]
Ruth: A Beautiful Dismantling
Ruth: A Beautiful Dismantling is a memoir, which delves into themes of family, love, mortality, grief, memory, and the power of story as a unifying tie between all of humanity.
With a century of Southern storytelling dying with Ruth Weaver, a victim of Alzheimer’s, David races to collect her Depression-era tales of Paw Creek, North Carolina. Yet more than mere memories, David discovers a doctrine that challenges his views on the human experience and defines his beliefs on life, death, and the immortality of story. Centered on the past century of a Southern family, the work examines a woman’s 90-year life from a Depression-era cotton farm to a modern Southern city eventually attempting to conceptualize “story” as the unifying string of human experience....[To read more on Ruth: A Beautiful Dismantling click here]