Search for the Genuine, The
Nonfiction, 1970-2015
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- 115,00 kr
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- 115,00 kr
Publisher Description
The first general nonfiction title in thirty years from a giant of American letters, The Search for the Genuine is a sparkling, definitive collection of Jim Harrison's essays and journalism—some never before published
New York Times–bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937–2016) was a writer with a poet’s economy of style and a trencherman’s appetites. Praised as a “national treasure” (Chicago Tribune) and published in twenty-seven languages, he was one of this country’s most beloved and critically acclaimed authors. Best known for his poetry and fiction such as Legends of the Fall, Dalva, and Returning to Earth, Harrison was also a prolific nonfiction writer, with columns running in Sports Illustrated and Esquire, and work in Outside, Field & Stream, and others. The first collection of Harrison’s general nonfiction in thirty years, The Search for the Genuine is a sparkling, definitive volume of essays and journalism—from the near-classic to the never-published.
With his trademark ribald humor, compassion, and full-throated zest for life, The Search for the Genuine pays tribute to writers from Bukowski to Neruda to Peter Matthiessen, and examines the distance between literary reputation and the work itself; he attains something like satori in the field hunting grouse; he reports on Yellowstone for the park’s hundredth anniversary, when he was merely a tourist to the part of Montana he would eventually call home; he takes to the open sea in pursuit of roosterfish, marlin, tarpon, and, once, to observe a scientific mission tagging sharks; he delivers a heartbreaking essay on life—and, for those attempting to cross in the ever-more dangerous gaps, death—on the US-Mexico border. Always he comes back to the spirit and to connection with the natural world and the people who sustained him; throughout the book his feeling for the American landscape rings out.
Lovingly introduced by acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist Luis Alberto Urrea, The Search for the Genuine is a feast that captures a lifetime of reading, writing, and living to the fullest, from a true “American original” (San Francisco Chronicle).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
New and previously published essays, reviews, and travelogues by Harrison (1937–2016) come together in this rewarding trove of true-life tales and reflections from the restless Legends of the Fall author. The entries are grouped thematically and take readers through Harrison's thoughts on "love, spirit, and literature," lifelong passion and reverence for hunting (mostly game birds, with lovingly astute attention paid to his hunting dogs), contemplation of his home turf in "Michigan, Montana and other sacred places," and passion for fishing and being on the water. In "Meditations on Hunting," he muses that "the natural world is an enormous mystery and I married her very early," while in "Thoreau," he covers his "idiosyncratic relation" to the writer's work. One of the longer pieces, "Life on the Border," delivers a picturesque take on the frontier region where Arizona and Mexico meet: "Those in the border states see the horror no one else sees," he notes, "because it is not a discursive media abstraction, but flesh-and-blood suffering." When read chronologically, the pieces evince an evolution in tone and style and document the author's assured knack for his craft. Harrison devotees will eat this up.