Not very impressed! This is a book club book--it will be interesting to hear discussion. It didn't touch or move me; felt separate from characters. ( )

At 45, Donald is dying of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. He’s pretty far along when he begins to recite the stories of his life and his family’s history to his wife, who records them and adds her own comments. These are poignant stories involving mixtures of Native American and Western culture in the Michigan Upper Peninsula going back several generations.

Donald views his predicament largely through his personal Native American religion of sorts. He tells us he doesn’t want to talk about his religion, which I guess is a way of letting us know that his religion is the major theme in this book.

When Donald finishes, three others characters, each very close to Donald, take over, neatly dividing the book into four short-ish parts. These later sections don’t have the same power as Donald’s sections, but they do have their own appeal. David, Donald’s brother-in-law, stands out. “David is that rare type who on waking from a night’s sleep or his multiple daily naps has to reconstitute the world. Last year he told me that he has cognitive problems wherein on waking he’s not sure the world actually exists. He’s unsure until he consciously rehearses his senses.” And his section is brilliant.

All in all this is actually a feel good book. Its fun and thoughtful, a book about life. It’s also a book about religion, albeit a non-organized Native American religion; and, it’s manipulated to the religion's benefit, something that bothered me a bit and confuses my response to the book. But, I enjoyed reading it and would read another book by Harrison ( )

Dying at 45 of Lou Gehrig's disease, Donald, who is Chippewa- Finnish, dictates his family story to his wife, Cynthia, who records this headlong tale for their two grown children (and also interjects). Donald's half-Chippewa great-grandfather, Clarence, set out from Minnesota in 1871 at age 13 for the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In Donald's compellingly digressive telling, Clarence worked the farms and mines of the northern Midwest, and arrived in the Marquette, Mich., area 35 years later. As Donald weaves the tale of his settled life of marriage and fatherhood with that of his restless ancestors, he reveals his deep connection to an earlier, wilder time and to a kind of people who are "gone forever." The next three parts of the novel, each narrated by a different member of Donald's family, relate the story of Donald's death and its effects. While his daughter, Clare, seeks solace in Donald's Anishnabeg religion, Cynthia and her brother, David, use Donald's death to come to terms with the legacy of their alcoholic father. The rambling narrative veers away from the epic sweep of Harrison's Legends of the Fall, and Donald's reticence about the role religion plays in his life dilutes its impact on the story. But Harrison's characters speak with a gripping frankness and intimacy about their own shortcomings, and delve into their grief with keen sympathy. (Jan.)
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This is the book that my Book Club is reading for next month. I am so excited because I heard about this book and never got around to reading it. Thanks for picking it, Daphne...mjr

This is the latest book by one of my favorite American writers. Returning to Earth is a sequel to True North. You either love JH's writing or just cannot understand why anyone anyone would make a fuss about him. RTT is set in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. It is a story of a family and their friends. It is a book of death and love and of the natural world in Northern Michigan (the woods, Lake Superior, rivers, bears, birds, mosquitoes, wild berries, sand dunes...). His sentences and words flow effortlessly, with insight and humor and grace. The love story of Donald and Cynthia is sweet, reassuring and wonderfully poignant. JH's characters do have flaws, but in this book their anxieties and pathologies are no more important than how they live from day to day, how the living of each day is important, how one's senses can bring enough joy. These are mostly kind and decent characters, and their stories are told with ease and without pretense.
And I like JH's writings because of his respect for Native Americans and their culture and this is also part of RTT.
For all of those who live away from the cutting edges of American society and want affirmation of life in a small town, Returning to Earth delivers that. ( )