The Trout

At the heart of every life there lies a secret.

Alex Smyth, of Irish birth but living for many years with his wife in rural Canada, receives a trout fly in the mail, with no message and no return address. It stirs a fear that he is being stalked after the publication of his most recent book, and it awakens in him deeply buried, inchoate memories from his childhood in Ireland, before he was old enough to understand the adult world around him. It also evokes the guilt that he may have murdered a man, a feeling so strong it changes him and threatens his marriage. Alex has no choice but to return alone to Ireland and his estranged father, to try and begin to solve the mystery.

A novel of great literary beauty structured as a tense psychological thriller, The Trout is a tale of predators and prey, deception, and the hidden crimes that can shape a life. Alex’s physician father loved to fish and imbued in him a deep knowledge of the sport. At the beginning of each chapter is a brief passage on the natural history of the trout, or observations of trout behavior, or fisherman’s lore. Each resonates deeply with the dark mystery at the core of the novel.

Peter Cunningham is an award-winning novelistt, who won the Prix de l’Europe and the Prix Caillou for his historical novel The Sea and the Silence. He is a member of Aosdána, the Irish Academy for Arts and Letters and lives with his wife in County Kildare, Ireland.