Short Stories/Novellas

The author of Dalva and Legends of the Fall has created three stunning novellas that echo the best works of Raymond Carver and James Dickey. A superb collection that evokes life lived close to the land--and a brilliant portrayal of the complex relationships of the men and women there.

In three novellas, Jim Harrison takes us on an American journey as he leads us through the wondrous landscape of the human heart. "Julip" follows a bright and resourceful young woman as she tries to spring her brother from a Florida jail—he shot three of her former lovers "below the belt." "The Seven-Ounce Man" continues the picaresque adventures of Brown Dog, a Michigan scoundrel who loves to eat, drink, and chase women, all while sailing along in the bottom 10 percent. "The Beige Dolorosa" is the haunting tale of an academic who, recovering from the repercussions of a sexual harassment scandal, turns to the natural world for solace. In each of these stories, the irresistible pull of nature becomes a magnificent backdrop for exploring the toughest questions about life and love.

Jim Harrison is an American master. The Beast God Forgot to Invent offers stories of culture and wildness, of men and beasts and where they overlap. A wealthy man retired to the Michigan woods narrates the tale of a younger man decivilized by brain damage. A Michigan Indian wanders Los Angeles, hobnobbing with starlets and screenwriters while he tracks an ersatz Native-American activist who stole his bearskin. An aging "alpha canine," the author of three dozen throwaway biographies, eats dinner with the ex-wife of his overheated youth, and must confront the man he used to be.

Jim Harrison's new book, The Summer He Didn't Die, is a collection of novellas showcasing the flair that has made him a contemporary master of the form, and a celebration of love, the senses, and family, no matter how untraditional. The Summer He Didn't Die exults with life and all its magic. In the title novella, Brown Dog, a hapless Michigan Indian loved by Harrison's readers, is trying to parent his two step-children and take care of his family's health on meager resources - it helps a bit that his charms are irresistible to the new dentist in town. Republican Wives is a witty satire on the sexual neuroses of the Right, the mystery of why any person desires another, and the irrational power of love that, when thwarted, can turn so easily into an urge to murder. Tracking is a meditation on Harrison's fascination with place, telling his own familiar mythology through the places he has seen and the intellectual loves he has known in a vivid stream of consciousness that transfigures how we look at our own surroundings.

Jim Harrison's most ambitious and stunning collection of novellas since Legends of the Fall The Farmer's Daughter is an unforgettable portrait of three decidedly unconventional American lives. With wit, poignancy, and an unmatched depth of spirit and humanity, Harrison has again reminded us why he is one of the most cherished and important authors at work today. The three stories in The Farmer's Daughter display a writer whose gift is in full flower. The title novella is the uncompromising, heartbreaking tale of Sarah, a home-schooled fifteen-yearold girl recently transplanted by her somewhat oblivious parents to rural Montana, who is learning that the world is larger than her fundamentalist mother wants her to know. In the rapture of playing music, riding her horse, and enjoying the natural world, Sarah searches for clues to understand her own coming of age. But when her mother runs off with another man, the girl is left to deal with an act of unexpected brutality that will test her faith in the world she is starting to embrace. In Brown Dog Redux, Harrison shifts to the lighter side. The beloved recurring character Brown Dog is killing time in Toronto where he's fled to save his adopted daughter, Berry, from being locked in an institution. But Toronto has run out of welcome and BD, still looking for love, enlists the help of an unexpected benefactor to sneak Berry back into the States on the tour bus of an Indian rock band called Thunderskins, with riotously funny results. Harrison's final tale, Games of Night, is the witty, ribald, and occasionally harrowing memoir of a retired werewolf in contemporary times. Misdiagnosed with a rare blood disorder brought on by the bite of a Mexican hummingbird, he attempts to lead a normal life, but is nevertheless plagued by hazy, feverish episodes of epic lust, physical appetite, athletic exertions, and outbursts of violence under the full moon. The Farmer's Daughter is a full meal of a book-a rich and rewarding visit to the world of an American master.

Jim Harrison is one of America’s most beloved and critically-acclaimed authors—on a par with American literary greats like Richard Ford, Anne Tyler, Robert Stone, Russell Banks, and Ann Beattie. His latest collection of novellas, The River Swimmer , is Harrison at his most memorable: a brilliant rendering of two men striving to find their way in the world, written with freshness, abundant wit, and profound humanity. In The Land of Unlikeness , sixty-year-old art history academic Clive—a failed artist, divorced and grappling with the vagaries of his declining years—reluctantly returns to his family’s Michigan farmhouse to visit his aging mother. The return to familiar territory triggers a jolt of renewal—of ardor for his high school love, of his relationship with his estranged daughter, and of his own lost love of painting. In Water Baby , Harrison ventures into the magical as an Upper Peninsula farm boy is irresistibly drawn to the water as an escape, and sees otherworldly creatures there. Faced with the injustice and pressure of coming of age, he takes to the river and follows its siren song all the way across Lake Michigan. The River Swimmer is a striking portrait of two richly-drawn, profoundly human characters, and an exceptional reminder of why Jim Harrison is one of the most cherished and important writers at work today.

“Among the most indelible American novelists of the last hundred years. . . . [Harrison] remains at the height of his powers.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times on The River Swimmer New York Times best-selling author Jim Harrison is one of America’s most beloved writers, and of all his creations, Brown Dog, a bawdy, reckless, down-on-his-luck Michigan Indian, has earned cult status with readers in the more than two decades since his first appearance. For the first time, Brown Dog gathers all the Brown Dog novellas, including one never-published one, into one volume—the ideal introduction (or reintroduction) to Harrison’s irresistible Everyman. In these novellas, BD rescues the preserved body of an Indian from Lake Superior’s cold waters; overindulges in food, drink, and women while just scraping by in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula; wanders Los Angeles in search of an ersatz Native activist who stole his bearskin; adopts two Native children; and flees the authorities, then returns across the Canadian border aboard an Indian rock band’s tour bus. The collection culminates with He Dog, never before published, which finds BD marginally employed and still looking for love (or sometimes just a few beers and a roll in the hay), as he goes on a road trip from Michigan to Montana and back, arriving home to the prospect of family stability and, perhaps, a chance at redemption. Brown Dog underscores Harrison’s place as one of America’s most irrepressible writers, and one of the finest practitioners of the novella form. Praise for Jim Harrison’s Brown Dog: “There is broad comedy in the writing, but also tenderness, and never a moment when the reader isn’t rooting for Brown Dog to get it right. . . . We would all be the poorer if deprived of Jim Harrison’s first-rate stories.”— The New York Times Book Review on The Summer He Didn’t Die “Brown Dog, an old friend to fans of Harrison, . . . boasts the rare ability to reject the frills and artificial complexities of modern life and keep to the basics. . . . Like reading a book describing dear friends.”— Miami Herald on The Farmer’s Daughter “A 21st-century version of Huck Finn.”— The Charleston Gazette on The Farmer’s Daughter

“Among the most indelible American novelists of the last hundred years . . . [Harrison] remains at the height of his powers.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times on The River Swimmer New York Times bestselling author Jim Harrison is one of our most beloved and acclaimed writers, adored by both readers and critics. In The Ancient Minstrel , Harrison delivers three novellas that highlight his phenomenal range as a writer, shot through with his trademark wit and keen insight into the human condition. Harrison has tremendous fun with his own reputation in the title novella, about an aging writer in Montana who spars with his estranged wife, with whom he still shares a home, weathers the slings and arrows of literary success, and tries to cope with the sow he buys on a whim and the unplanned litter of piglets that follow soon after. In Eggs , a Montana woman reminisces about staying in London with her grandparents, and collecting eggs at their country house. Years later, having never had a child, she attempts to do so. And in The Case of the Howling Buddhas , retired Detective Sunderson—a recurring character from Harrison’s New York Times bestseller The Great Leader and The Big Seven —is hired as a private investigator to look into a bizarre cult that achieves satori by howling along with howler monkeys at the zoo. Fresh, incisive, and endlessly entertaining, with moments of both profound wisdom and sublime humor, The Ancient Minstrel is an exceptional reminder of why Jim Harrison is one of the most cherished and important writers at work today.