The Summer He Didn't Die
by Jim Harrison
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Jim Harrison's vivid, tender, and deeply felt fictions have won him acclaim as an American master of the novella. His latest highly acclaimed volume of novellas, The Summer He Didn't Die, is a sparkling and exuberant collection about love, the senses, and family, no matter how untraditional. In the title novella, "The Summer He Didn't Die," Brown Dog, a hapless Michigan Indian, is trying to parent his two stepchildren and take care of his family's health on meager resources -- it helps a bit show more that his charms are irresistible to the new dentist in town. "Republican Wives" is a wicked satire on the sexual neuroses of the right, the emptiness of a life lived for the status quo, and the irrational power of love that, when thwarted, can turn so easily into an urge to murder. And "Tracking" is a meditation on Harrison's fascination with place, telling his own familiar mythology through the places his life has seen and the intellectual loves he has known. With wit as sharp and prose as lush as any Harrison has yet written, The Summer He Didn't Die is a resonant, warm, and joyful ode to our journey on this earth. show lessTags
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Three stories (novellas) are classic Harrison. Low key sarcasm, insight, and a warmth that comes through his dry matter of fact writing style. He's an old man now and it girds his writing. Its like a postcard of whats to come.
More assigned reading. For someone who has never read Harrison before, I'm not sure this is the place to start. The title novella featured Brown Dog, a character Harrison has evidently written about before, and one who is charming and endearing despite (maybe because of) all his faults. I wanted to like the rest of the book, but "Republican Wives" managed to annoy me, and "Tracking" only confused and irritated me--I don't think I'm a fan of metafiction, frankly.
2 novellas and an autobiographical essay in 34d person that is similar in content to his memoir which I've read. One novella is about B.D., a part-Native American grotesque character that he uses sometimes; and the threats from the State against the family; and the basic decency of (loony) basic people; and about the land and the world around us. The 2nd is about rich white women in trouble & doesn't really go anywhere.
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81+ Works 11,877 Members
James Thomas Harrison was born on December 11, 1937 in Grayling, Michigan. After receiving a B.A. in comparative literature from Michigan State University in 1960 and a M.A. in comparative literature from the same school in 1964, he briefly taught English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. During his lifetime, he wrote 14 show more collections of poetry, 21 volumes of fiction, two books of essays, a memoir, and a children's book. His collections of poetry included Plain Song, The Theory and Practice of Rivers, Songs of Unreason, and Dead Man's Float. He received a Guggenheim fellowship for his poetry in 1969. His essays on food, much of which first appeared in Esquire, was collected in the 2001 book, The Raw and the Cooked. His memoir, Off to the Side, was published in 2002. His first novel, Wolf, was published in 1971. His other works of fiction included A Good Day to Die, Farmer, The Road Home, Julip, and The Ancient Minstrel. His novel, Legends of the Fall, was adapted into a feature film starring Anthony Hopkins and Brad Pitt. Harrison wrote the screenplay for the movie. His novel, Dalva, was adapted as a made-for-television movie starring Rod Steiger and Farrah Fawcett. He died on March 26, 2016 at the age of 78. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- Members
- 285
- Popularity
- 112,968
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.70)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 19
- ASINs
- 4
