New West Book Review

W.D. Wetherell’s “Yellowstone Autumn”

By Jenny Shank, 4-24-09

Yellowstone Autumn: A Season of Discovery in a Wondrous Land
by W.D. Wetherell
University of Nebraska Press, 166 pages, $24.95

Novelist W.D. Wetherell was facing a turning point as his 55th birthday approached, after which he’d cross into the territory he calls “late middle age,” so he decided to leave his wife and teenage children in New Hampshire and spend three weeks of reflection and fishing in Yellowstone, one of his favorite places.  His birthday fell in September, when the summer crowds had dissipated.  He writes that he “hopes to find in this solitude a blinding flash of insight into his existential condition, a serenity that will see him safely through the coming year, a solace he can draw upon like an unlimited savings account, a wisdom that will make him the envy of all his friends.  Wants, at the very minimum to catch a trophy brown trout of such size, strength, and vibrancy that it temporarily reconciles him to life.”

Wetherell does catch a fish or two, but he doesn’t receive that thunderbolt of insight.  Instead his time alone in nature, not always perfect, some of it lonely, serves to prepare him for the tests that face him in the next part of his life, such as coping with his father’s fragile health, seeing his children grow up and leave the home, and accepting the diminishment of his own physical and creative powers.

Wetherell’s chronicle of his quest for direction in later life is unusual because you typically read of similar struggles in young people who are trying to find their paths in life, not in those who have already succeeded in their chosen fields.  But Wetherell is not content to fade off into retirement.  He wants to enter his next years fully engaged. 

One of my favorite classes I took in college was called “Religion and Autobiography,” taught by Father John Dunne (whose The Way of All The Earth was listed as one of the best spiritual books of the 20th century by the publishers of the Best American Spirtual Writing).  Father Dunne spoke of how it’s better to move from insight to insight about the direction of your life, rather than to try to stick to a predetermined plan.  Even then, there’s a danger in getting too much mileage out of an insight, which can cause you to end up feeling burned out or off track.  At these times you need to retreat, center yourself and get your bearings, so that you can walk through life upright rather than be dragged through by the current, which is precisely what Weatherell is attempting to do in Yellowstone Autumn.

At the beginning of his trip, Wetherell notices the other men of his age or older who are visiting the park, finding “haggard-looking…predictable businessmen” and “paunchy men a little ahead of their wives.” He writes:

“But there are others, comfortable, fit-looking men who sometimes carry briefcases, but are more apt to be toting fly rods or tennis rackets or even fairly thick books.  They’re a damn-fine looking bunch; they tend to be tanned, tend to wear chinos, tend to look like football refs.  The ones I stare at longest seem marked by a generous kind of sophistication (they can talk with anybody), and a relaxed sort of acceptance; they’re comfortable with themselves, but far from smug.  Role models?  The kind of man I’d like to be in ten years’ time?  Well, maybe, maybe not, but it’s interesting to catch myself looking.”

Wetherell’s not sure how to go about finding the wisdom he seeks, but one of the best ways turns out to be through fishing.  Father Dunne would say that fly fishing, an activity that seems to bring Wetherell contemplative, quiet engagement with nature, delivers him to what T.S. Eliot called “the still point of the turning world"—from which he can make the wisest decisions.

During his sojourn in Yellowstone, Wetherell reads about the history of the park, and imagines himself as part of the 1870 Washburn Expedition to the area.  With time, Wetherell is able to see past the “Ironic National Park” in which “RV Drivers suddenly slam on the breaks in the middle of the road and disgorge camera-toting occupants who immediately surround an embarrassed squirrel” and gain a real, renewed appreciation for Old Faithful, among other of the park’s features.  But some of the strongest passages take place not in Yellowstone, but in Wetherell’s mind, as he contemplates the challenges and blessings of a long-term marriage and mulls the idea that novelist usually loses steam later in life.

“Yellowstone is purest America, Wonderland, the country’s least-known best-known place,” Wetherell writes, “Millions go there, but very few see it; the normal park stay is less than twenty-four hours and only 2 percent of visitors ever leave the park roads.” And Wetherell finds that late middle age is another undiscovered country, seldom examined or celebrated, but just as ripe for inquiry as the other epochs in a life.

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