I’m not a fan of India Pale Ales. They have always been acrid and awful to my taste. But I brought home a case of Two Hearted IPA the other day, which takes its name after a river that drives through the wilds of Northern Michigan, where it will continue to flow long after we are gone.   

There are different stories as to how the river got its curious name. In one telling, it’s a reference to the magnanimity of the settlers, who, with hearts so big they may as well have had two, once welcomed a Confederate veteran as he sought to start anew after the Civil War. It is said he lived in a cabin perched upon the headwaters of the eastward-flowing river. It must have been nice each morning to watch the rays of the rising sun strike the waters.   

But the real reason I picked up this case of beer is that Two Hearted River is the setting of Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Big Two-Hearted River,” which follows the author’s autobiographical character Nick Adams as he licks the wounds brought home from World War I. On the surface, it’s a story about a fishing trip. In reality, it’s about one man healing amid the madness that consumed the 20^th century through communion with nature. It’s an evergreen story in that way and relevant now.  

What do I mean by that? Here are some totally commonplace headlines in our time:

• A West Virginia woman’s body was found on a burning couch in a field, immolated by an illegal alien who previously had been caught by authorities and then released.
• A little boy in Florida was molested by a man who told police that “he is bisexual and has not had a sexual partner since arriving in the United States from Venezuela.”
• Another illegal alien in Connecticut was released by law enforcement, despite a detainer request from immigration authorities and having been convicted of killing two children while drunk driving.  

The world may not be at war, yet, but it has gone insane and it’s mired in depravity. Dwelling on this can be dispiriting. Everyone needs a place to go, literal or metaphorical. For Nick—and Hemingway—it was the river.  

“Big Two-Hearted River” has no plot. Nick only says a few words. But the symbolism is there. When Nick arrives in Michigan by train upon returning from the war, he is confronted by the charred remains of a town, which carries echoes of the devastation the author witnessed in Europe. There is nothing left. “Even the surface had been burned off the ground.” Nick then walks over to a river and sees trout holding fast in the current, adjusting to the swift water as necessary, but holding—like Nick.   

In a chapel-like island of pine trees, Nick lies on the ground after a long walk and falls asleep looking up at the sky through the swaying branches. When he awakens, Nick builds a camp that becomes the center of his universe, the safe place from which he will fish the river. Beyond the river is a menacing swamp with deep water that Nick won’t enter. Instead, he fishes the river and climbs the high ground, returning to camp at peace.  

Though it’s never stated, Nick is coping with physical and psychological scars. The river is where he goes to regenerate, to wash himself clean and be born anew. And it’s only possible because Nick has, for the moment, left behind civilization, stripping himself down only to what he can carry in his pack. In this state of abandon, Nick can heal and transcend his worldly suffering.  

Things are bound to get much worse before and if they get better in this country. It’s all too easy to lose oneself in the mania, in the daily procession of horrors that can leave you sapped. That is why we all need our Two Hearted River, our camp and stream beyond the ruins.