Catherine Varchaver (APCD Kyrgyzstan 1995-97) Edits Her Grandmother’s Book on Fly Fishing

Maxine Atherton learned to fish with her father and attended the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) where she met her future husband, John Atherton, the renowned painter and illustrator-and avid angler. After John’s untimely death in 1952 while fishing on the Miramichi in New Brunswick, Maxine embarked on an extended angling adventure in France and Spain that led to many more adventures over the next four decades. In 1962 Max published Every Sportsman’s Cookbook. She spent her last years writing in Manchester, Vermont, and died in January 1997.

When she passed away, her granddaughter, Catherine Varchaver, (APCD Kyrgyzstan 1995-97) found a wrapped roll of manuscript pages that she had honed, one reviewer writes, “into this winsome yet powerful memoir” just published by Skyhorse Publishing and entitled, The Fly Fisher and the River. It is being released in conjunction with a reissue of The Fly and the Fish by Catherine’s grandfather, John Atherton.

Catherine  is now the senior stewardship officer at World Wildlife Fund’s headquarters in Washington, DC. She writes extensively about global conservation programs to inspire individual philanthropy.

The Fly Fisher and the River: A Memoir
by Maxine Atherton, edited by Catherine Varchaver
Skyhorse Publishing
March 2016
272 pages
$24.99

The book is available now (pre-order) from amazon.com