Crosscut Creek

When author Willoughby Johnson and family bought a farm on a trout stream in the Ozarks, they bought into a close-knit community as well—“a junior membership in a vast web of human relationships that converge here.” Crosscut Creek chronicles a year in the tiny town of Crosscut, Missouri, and is more than a book about fly fishing for trout, it’s about connecting with land, family, and community. Whether writing about gigging for suckers, teaching his daughters to fly fish, or making moonshine, Johnson reminds us that sometimes the simple things in life bring the greatest pleasure.


Willoughby Johnson lives in Kansas City, Missouri, with his wife and two daughters. This is his first book.


“No one of us who grew up in the last century can avoid missing its clarity, its sense of values forming a framework for our lives. This book returns me there instantly and completely. It makes me want to get in my car and drive out into the country -- but few of us would be able to see as Johnson has done. He scrounged up the money and bought a piece of farmland in rural Missouri, land with a trout stream running through it. What he found was that he had acquired not just land and a few fish, but a complex web of relationships with the rural farmers who lived around him. He has bought into a different life. Johnson writes well about the people he meets and the fish he catches, but what he really does well is SEE. This is a terrific book. For those of us who miss the clearer life we vaguely remember, reading CROSSCUT CREEK is a necessity. Great read.” George Johnson