The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing

The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing (1998) is a contemporary novel by Melissa Bank. Nominated for the 1999 Guardian First Book Award, Bank’s debut novel explores what it is like to be a young woman coming of age in America. Reviewers note that Bank’s observations are accurate and insightful. An American novelist and short story writer, her short story collection, “The Wonder Spot,” has been translated into more than thirty languages. She received the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for Short Fiction. Bank attended Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

Although The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing is a novel, it comprises fourteen interlinked short stories, which form a larger narrative chronicling the protagonist’s journey from adolescence to adulthood. The novel is best read chronologically as later stories may spoil earlier stories in the collection.

From the age of fourteen until her mid-thirties, Jane Rosenal is preoccupied with love. She wants to understand love and experience all the emotional highs and lows of romance. Jane doesn’t think she needs love or a romantic partner. She simply wants it.



Jane is perpetually single. By the novel’s end, she remains unmarried, not knowing if she will ever find a husband. Jane no longer cares about finding a partner because she feels that she understands something about love now. Content with her career in book editing, if a partner comes along, so be it. Unlike many women, Jane doesn’t define herself by her relationship status; she remains consistent in this respect throughout the novel.

The first story, “Advanced Beginners,” introduces Jane as a teenage girl taking her first steps into the dating world, which she doesn’t like very much. She doesn’t know how to express her emotions. Like most teenagers, she feels everything intensely. Struggling to find her own dates, she explores romance through her family’s relationships.

Jane’s older brother, Henry, gets a girlfriend when he is twenty. The girlfriend, Julia, is twenty-eight. Jane doesn’t like Julia’s influence on Henry. Henry grows a beard, calls himself “Hank,” and talks differently. Jane wonders if love changes people and if the changes are all they’re cracked up to be.



Eventually, Jane gets her first serious boyfriend, Jamie. Jamie is overbearing, but Jane thinks she is in love with him. She questions her feelings for him when he takes her to stay with his ex-girlfriend, Bella, and her husband, Yves. Bella makes Jane feel uncomfortable because she constantly brings up the past.

Jane confronts Bella when she starts flirting with Jamie. Jamie doesn’t see what Bella is doing, and so, he blames Jane for making a scene. Jamie also doesn’t notice that Yves fancies Jane and is flirting with her. Jane makes up with Jamie once he rejects Bella and agrees to end the trip early. What is scary for Jane is how quickly she falls back in love with Jamie after despising him during the trip. Their relationship, however, is doomed to fail.

Later, Jane dates Archie, who is almost thirty years older than her. Having just begun her career in publishing, she feels she is ready for a great love affair. If Henry could date an older partner, so can she. The problem is that Archie is a very difficult man to date because he has so many problems, from alcoholism to impotence. He is moody and argumentative. Jane finally understands that love isn’t enough to change someone. Archie must work on himself before he is ready for a relationship.



The older Jane gets, the more she feels like the “single friend” in her social circle. She sees how so many people define themselves according to their relationship status; she never wants to be one of those people. Nevertheless, she gets lonely, just like everyone else. It is easy to feel that she will never find love.

The title story, “The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing,” illustrates how Jane feels. Helping her friend choose a wedding dress, Jane feels left behind. Her friend tells her about a book she read that taught her how to catch men. Jane doesn’t want to think of herself as a fisherman, but she admits her friend might be on to something. Jane’s friend is engaged, and she is not.

Jane meets Robert at the wedding. Jane decides to snare Robert, and so, she buys the book. They date for a brief period. Robert, however, quickly loses interest because he doesn’t like a girl who plays games. He has played games before and they never end well. Jane realizes that her plan has backfired. Robert dated her because of who she is, not who she is pretending to be. Jane is single once more, but she has learned valuable lessons about being true to herself, being honest with other people, and giving love a chance.