Sporting Classics Review of Ten Was The Deal

I was honored that my new book Ten Was The Deal was reviewed by Sporting Classics magazine. Click on the picture below to see the article in context or read the excerpt  below.

A NOTEWORTHY NEW BOOK
John P. Faris Jr., Ten Was the Deal: Southern Hunting and Fishing Stories. Indianapolis, Indiana: Dog Ear Publishing, 2013.

Available in hardback, paperback and e-book forms through major retailers.

This work, illustrated by Ralph A. Mark Jr., is a throwback to a time when storytelling was considered an art and outdoor magazines actually published material of that genre on a regular basis as opposed today’s fixation with how to, where to and trophy hunting. Faris’ book is largely autobiographical in nature and exhibits the author’s obvious appreciation of Robert Ruark’s Old Man and the Boy. There are a dozen pieces in all along with an introduction that pays warm tribute to his father as a sporting mentor. The book’s title comes from one of the stories, and along the way you’ll fish for bream, hunt ducks and turkeys (the latter in a piece with the unlikely but eye-catching title “Big ’Possums Walk Late”), and enjoy the camaraderie and closeness to the land that loom so large in Southern storytelling. I greatly enjoyed the book, and it’s no secret that I can be picky and sometimes downright peevish when judging works dealing with hunting and fishing.