The Last Marlin: A Father-Son Story

As an ardent sport fisherman, I did not expect to find the great read that I did when I picked up "The Last Marlin" in the sportfishing section of our local library. A great autobiography of Waitzkin's growing up within a rather dysfunctional family, with a sportsman's love of his favorite sport (biggame fishing) told first hand from years spent growing up in Bimini on his father's and then later his own boat. Easy read, reads like a novel. I highly recommend for both the fisherman and non-fisherman.

I started the book on Friday and finished reading it on Saturday evening. I couldn't put it down. I loved it. I think it is a great book, in the genre of Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes and Tis, but with more depth. It read well, read easy. And yet, it wasn't just about another fictional disfunctional family. It wasn't formulaic. It didn't manifest a protagonist hero overcoming of a difficult history. There wasn't even a clear hero or antihero. It showed a family, a history, that, to some extent or another is a common family, a common history, especially for Jews in America. It's a generational story, a fishing adventure, a history of sportfishing and Bimini and life in the 50s and 60s in New York Jewish society. It's a history of art and jazz and poetry. There is a lot of stuff going on in The Last Marlin. It's an interesting book, not easily put into a classification. It reads like a novel, though it brings to light the oft-quoted phrase that "truth is stranger than fiction." Because it's not fiction, because it's real, the reader will be able to identify with the characters either within us or within our families. Character development, especially of the four leading characters is terrific. Abe, Stella, Bill and Fred are unique characters and all of them, Fred included, are portrayed as seriously neurotic. Each has attractive qualities but each is, to various degrees, self-centered and awful. There is a lot of rage in this book, just like in most families. But most novels don't deal with rage like this, like most people in real life deal with rage. In a novel there would be a murder or rape. In the book, people cope or don't cope as best as they can. They survive, or maybe not, like Bill. I think that is how life is. I would have like to seen Bonnie's character developed more fully. Most readers are going to wonder what the hell she is doing putting up with Fred and the eccentric lifestyle he imposes. A MUST READ!

The Last Marlin by Fred Waitzkin is a wonderfully written memior which allows you to enter his world of big game fishing and a very unconventional childhood. Waitzkin's complete openess and honesty about his parents, Stella and Abe, will allow to feel the joy, anger and confusion he and his brother Billy had through adolescents. As if this side of his life isn't enough, Waitzkin continues to tell you about his incredible trips fishing for marlin, shark and tuna,with his family, as well as, some of the best fisherman in the world. Whether your a parent, angler, businessman or artist The Last Marlin is a sheer joy to read.

The Last Marlin is a truly exsquisitely written memoir. Fred Waitzkin writes about shark encounters and the passion of fishing with an exhilerating intensity that is balanced by his both hilarious and tragic description of the decline of his family. This novel-seeming-book spans from the consevative world of Fred's lighting fixture salesman father to his excentric artist mother and the wild waters of the Bahamas. You don't have to love fishing to love The Last Marlin, nor do you have to have a passion for flourescents (although if you do, you will certainly be touched), you simply have to love a great story.

A beautifully-written book that is alternately sad, funny and wise,Fred Waitzkin recounts his experiences of growing up in a bizarrely dysfunctional family in the America of the fifties. Stella Rosenblatt is the New York-born daughter of an immigrant industrialist who has built Globe Lighting into the leading company in its field. Abe Waitzkin is a high-powered lighting salesman from Boston. Stella, a radical artist with a strong aversion to the business world and all its trappings,finds herself irresistibly drawn to the wily, dynamic and ambitious young Abe. Their marriage eventually degenerates into a clash of two enormously powerful wills, with their two sons, the author and his younger brother Bill, caught in the middle. To Stella's horror, Abe joins her father's company and through his relentless drive steers it to ever greater successes. While Abe takes advanatge of the greatest construction boom in American history by lavishly entertaining sleazy politicians, union bosses and construction magnates, Stella becomes an active member of a Long Island colony of artists that includes such luminaries as Willem de Kooning, Frank Stella and Jackson Pollack. Thus, while Abe is at the forefront of a new wave in American business, his wife is spending her days with the most important aritists in 20th century America. The ironies of being brought up in two such disparate worlds are rendered with humor and insight by the author. For Fred and his brother Bill, the only respite from the constanmtly clashing temperaments of their equally strong-willed parents comes through deep-sea fishing. In dozens of thrillingly-rendered scenes, Waitzkin lets the reader share the joys of the sea (especially around the idyllic Bahama island of Bimini)and the excitement of deep-sea sport fishing (for Marlin, sailfish, tuna, giant sharks, etc.). In Waitzkin's capable hands, the dissolution and frightening aftermath of his parents' ill-starred marriage and the concurrent ruin of Bimini's pristine beauty are made to mirror each other. Through it all, the author keeps on fishing, using that activity as a superb metaphor for unfulfilled longing and pereptually renewed hope. A very different and affecting personal memoir featuring larger-than-life characters and glorious, sun-filled locales. If you're "fishing" for a good read, search no further.