Among the many pleasures of John McPhee’s new book, Draft No. 4 – his reminiscences of his
dealings with William Shawn, his tips on how to dissolve writer’s block, the
cool structural diagrams of “The Encircled River,” “Travels in Georgia,” and “A
Fleet of One,” among other great pieces – the most piquant for me is the reappearance
of many of McPhee’s most vivid characters: Fred Brown (“The Pine Barrens”),
David Brower (“Encounters with the Archdruid”), Floyd Dominy (“Encounters with
the Archdruid”), Thomas Hoving (“A Roomful of Hovings”), Andy Chase (“Looking
for a Ship”), George Hartzog (“Ranger”), Euell Gibbons (“A Forager”), Don Ainsworth
(“A Fleet of One”), Henri Vaillancourt (“The Survival of the Bark Canoe”), Luc
Massy (“La Place de la Concorde Suisse”), on and on. All these great
characters! Memories of their stories come flooding back – stories that
are part of me, almost as if I’ve lived them! I lived them vicariously through
McPhee’s brilliant writing. Draft No. 4
is an exquisite way of re-experiencing them.
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