The Old Man and the Swamp
A True Story About My Weird Dad, a Bunch of Snakes, and One Ridiculous Road Trip
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
I have nothing against snakes, provided that they’re hundreds of miles away from me. And I have nothing against my dad, given the same set of conditions.
In a fit of questionable judgment, consummate indoorsman John Sellers tags along on a journey to search for snakes with his eccentric, aging father—an obsessive fan of Bob Dylan, a giver of terrible gifts, a drinker of boxed wine, a minister- turned-heretic, and, most importantly, the self-designated guardian of the threatened copperbelly water snake.
The quest is their fumbling attempt to reconnect. Decades of bitterness, substance abuse, acrimonious divorce, and divergent opinions about personal hygiene have conspired to make the two estranged. Sellers has just begun to develop a new appreciation for the American wilderness, and all the slithering creatures that populate it, when his father’s deteriorating health thwarts their mission and disturbs their tentative peace. Determined to finish what they started, he ventures back into the swamp— alone, but more connected to his dad than ever. With big-hearted humor and irreverence, The Old Man and the Swamp tells the story of a father who always lived on his own terms and the son who struggled to make sense of it all.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sellers (Perfect from Now On: How Indie Rock Saved My Life) and his father never had an ideal relationship: as a child he preferred video games and solving Rubik cubes to the outdoors, while his idiosyncratic father was "a self-made weirdo" who gave up the Lutheran ministry to pursue a less-than-middling career in the study of snakes. Their bond was strained even more after his parents divorced, and his father spiraled farther down with nominal income, drinking, and even more weirdness. But with his father approaching 70, they embarked on a redemptive journey to a swamp in Michigan in search of the endangered copperbelly water snake his father's most cherished species. The quest for snakes and finding peace with one another form the book's narrative drive both pursuits offering great potential. Although the ending of the book surprises and pleases, Sellers's storytelling, early on, relies too heavily on jokes and repetitive references to television shows and movies, with little to say on nature for readers with an authentic interest. Even though he eventually warms to his father's obsession, Sellers admits he still finds snakes "kind of gross."
