Robert F. Jones Lives, Writes Adventure

Author: Julie Samara

Robert F. Jones, highly acclaimed author of 15 books of fiction and nonfiction, will visit Middlebury College this Thursday to give a talk titled "Fly-fishing, Fiction and the Search for Innocence." Described as "America's best writer of high-action literary fiction" by Howard Frank Mosher, author of "A Stranger in the Kingdom," Jones has led a life of travel and outdoor adventure.

Jones grew up in Milwaukee, Wis., where he cultivated his love for nature by fishing, sailing, hunting and "just being out and around." After graduating from the University of Michigan with honors in 1956, Jones served on active duty in the United States Navy before becoming a general assignment reporter for The Milwaukee Sentinel in 1959.

Joining the staff of Time magazine in 1960 marked an important step in Jones' remarkable career as a writer. Between serving as a staff correspondent in the Washington, D.C., and Beverly Hills bureaus from 1960 to 1961, and then as an associate editor in New York City from 1961 to 1968, Jones wrote 22 cover stories "on subjects as various as the Vietnam War, urban riots, various coups, civil wars and assassinations."

Jones' work at Time magazine, where he initiated the "Time Essay" section, also brought him to sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe. An experienced world traveler, Jones has taken five subsequent safaris in East Africa, most recently for Audubon in 1990, and has also traveled and written extensively in Latin America, the Rocky Mountain West, Alaska, northern Canada, the Caribbean, New Zealand and Europe. Jones was awarded the "La Pluma de Plata Mexicana" from the Mexican government for his travel and outdoor stories about Baja California in 1977.

The staff of Sports Illustrated welcomed Jones first as a senior writer from 1968 to 1980, then as a special contributor from 1981 to 1992. At Sports Illustrated Jones covered motor sports, professional football, hunting, fishing and conservation. Jones' story "Tale of a Pup," written for Sports Illustrated in 1991, won the Winchester Good News on Hunting award and was later expanded into the award-winning children's book titled "Jake: A Labrador Puppy at Work and Play" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1992).

A Vermont resident for 23 years, Jones spoke affectionately of the "gorgeous" surroundings as an ideal place for a writer. "The quiet solitude has allowed me to get inside my own head," he remarked. Jones lives with his wife and two labradors in southwestern Vermont, surrounded by 35 acres of their own woods and fields and a trout stream that runs through their backyard.

Jones has written 15 books, including eight novels and seven nonfiction works, with a collection of essays about birds coming out this August. From outdoor games as a kid in Wisconsin to a canoe trip on the Tana River in Kenya, Jones' writing naturally incorporates his personal experiences in the outdoors. In writing "The Run to Gitche Gumee" (The Lyons Press, 2001), his most recent novel, Jones said, "First I imagined a canoe on a wild trip, then I dreamed up two men. One was myself."

The adventurous pair of friends in "The Run to Gitche Gumee," one college-bound and the other about to go off to the Korean War, go on a "surrealistic" canoe ride down the Gitche Gumee, also known as the Firesteel River, to Lake Superior. In the second part of the novel, "they do the same trip fifty years later, hoping to regain the innocence of youth," Jones explained.

Jones' writing often explores the theme of nature's innocence in contrast with the complex motives of humans. The author feels that with overpopulation, "the pressure of providing a decent life for human beings" is the most pressing environmental problem today. "Nature is innocent," Jones said. "Nature can be cruel, but it doesn't have ulterior motives." This Thursday, Jones will speak about "fly-fishing as a search for innocence." Jones describes fly-fishing as "the most satisfactory and pleasant" outdoor activity this time of year, finding peace in the process of catching and releasing the fish.

Jones' talk will also draw upon books such as "92 in the Shade" by Thomas McGuane, "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway, a short story by Annie Proulx titled "The Wer-Trout," and two of his own critically acclaimed novels, "Blood Sport" and "The Run to Gitche Gumee."

Middlebury College, particularly considering the school's focus on instilling respect for nature and literature in students, is an honored and fitting host for this highly accomplished author. Credited by Time magazine with creating "a new American myth … [which] produces in your mind the same edgy excitement as if entering a wild country," Jones' talk promises to offer listeners a pleasant adventure.