If You Haven't Read Him, You Should

Jim Harrison

In March Jim Harrison, a man of big appetites and even bigger talent, slipped out the side door of life while at his home in Patagonia, Arizona.  He was 78 and, lucky for us, left a magnificent collection of prose and poetry to wander through for generations.  The man could write.

He was a product of northern Michigan and his style, like the woods of the Upper Peninsula, is rough, hard scrabble and often reflective in the kind of "born there, die there" mentality of the people who inhabit that state.  Unlike Hemingway, he employed complex sentences and far more complex characters who almost always struggle with a weakness for both sex and alcohol, problems not unknown to Mr. Harrison himself.

In addition to poetry and fiction, Harrison also wrote extensively about food and drink for magazines like Esquire.  His book, The Raw and The Cooked, is a collection of tales recalling his Rabelaisian immoderation.  For example:  there was the summer he personally tested 38 varieties  of Cotes du Rhone which he referred to as a "small wine festival, just me, really."  And, my personal favorite, the story of the day he ate 144 oysters just to see if he could finish them.  (He could.)  Having once, in 1971,  consumed 132 of those delicious bi-valves while in New Orleans, I am now ashamed to have often bragged of the feat.  In my defense, I was at Felix's  Oyster Bar on Iberville Street and may have been under the influence of ardent spirits.

Harrison lived most recently near Livingston, Montana during the summer where he often spent afternoons blasting rattlesnakes in his yard while quaffing a beverage or three.  Winters found him in Arizona near the Mexican border where he also took aim at any critters that dared offend him.  His prose still mostly employed Michigan as a backdrop but he no longer maintained a home there.

In his time the man produced an impressive amount of fiction, including Legends of the Fall,  Dalva, Farmer, Wolf, True North and many others.  Most recently The Ancient Minstrel  , a book of fiction, and Dead Man's Float, a poetry collection were both published.  Both are great.  But, if you have never read the man, I would suggest his memoir, Off to the Side,  and The Raw and the Cooked, as an excellent introduction to his work.  Do yourself a favor and order one or both from Amazon.  For my money he is one of the finest writers America has ever produced.  A true character of True North.