Recommended Reading

Cleveland Psychoanalytic Center member Ed Novak, LPCC has written a book on his favorite pastime, steelhead trout fishing.  The book, “Meet Me at the Net: Stories From Steelhead Alley,” is available from Amazon and also has its own website, www.steelheadalley.net.  Ed's book offers a humorous, informative and intimate look at fishing, revealing a deep appreciation for the natural world, and the benefits of companionship with others who share the steelhead passion. The author obviously enjoys introducing others to the sport that entertains, challenges, and restores him. He is appropriately proud of Ohio’s hatchery and stocking program, which has made the tributaries of Lake Erie, “Steelhead Alley,” the envy of the nation.Psychotherapists and psychoanalysts will also notice the undercurrent of contemporary relational psychoanalysis theory captured in these stories and reflections of fishing the Lake Erie tributaries with close friends for over a decade.  Ed has been able to language the relational interactions between fishermen (and sometimes with fish), drawing on psychoanalytic concepts professionals will recognize, even though they are not overtly identified in the book.“Meet Me At the Net” has been praised by sport fishermen and authors.  The following quote is typical.“If Ed Novak is as amiable a companion on the river as he is on the page, I want to fish with him.  I greatly enjoyed his thoughtful, gently humorous reflections on the angling life and the remarkable fishery called Steelhead Alley.  Meet Me At the Net is bound to become a classic of mid-American fishing literature.”Jerry Dennis, author of A Place on the Water: An Angler’s Reflections on Home, and The Windward Shore: A Winter on the Great Lakes