I’m told that Jim Harrison did much of his writing in this cabin on his farm near Leland, Michigan, before moving to Livingston, Montana, and Patagonia, Arizona.
Jim Harrison has probed the breadth of human appetites — for food and drink, for art, for sex, for violence and, most significantly, for the great twin engines of love and death. Perhaps no American writer better appreciates those myriad drives; since the publication of his first collection of poetry, “Plain Songs,” in 1966, Harrison has become their poet laureate. His characters — and, by extension, their creator — hunger for a wild and sinewy abundance: for, in his words, “mental heat, experience, jubilance,” for a life fully lived.
Harrison’s work is considered men’s lit I suppose (or whatever the opposite of chick-lit would be called), but he was first brought to my attention by my daughter-in-law Veronica. His fiction is set mostly in rural America, often near places he’s lived.
Harrison’s latest novel is The English Major. I’ve just finished it and am eager to try another, perhaps True North or Dalva. Harrison wrote the screenplay — based on his own stories — for Legends of the Fall.
I recommend Dalva. Part Jim Harrison / part Louise Erdrich
Jim Harrison is my favorite writer and poet, I’ve read all his work. I think he is the best poet of our generation, hands down. Please read his novel The Road Home, and The Shape of the Journey, a poetry collection.