Search for the Genuine, The
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).
More details
Person
JIM HARRISON (1937-2016) was the author of thirty-nine other works of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, including Legends of the Fall, The Road Home, Returning to Earth, and The English Major. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he had work published in twenty-seven languages.
Content
Introduction
The Man Who Ate Books (Télérama)
Playful ?memoir? of voraciousness for books, beginning with a (probably fictional) scene where as a baby the unnamed third-person narrator chewed on a family Bible
Dogs in the Manger: On Love, Spirit, and Literature
Why I Write (written for France, unpublished in English, possibly not published at all)
Short early piece, likely unpublished, dated to 1970s
Sitting Around (Tricycle)
On Zen and meditation
Dogs in the Manger (unpublished)
Literary reputation, very funny section on the anxieties of ?regional? writers. Originally written for the NYTBR, never published
My Leader (In Search of Small Gods)
A memorable meeting with a goat in a Mexican cemetery, originally published in In Search of Small Gods (as a prose poem)
Nesting in Air (Northern Lights, anthology)
First Person Female (New York Times Magazine)
Essay for the New York Times Magazine on writing in the voice/head of female characters
Great Poems Make Good Prayers (Esquire)
Peter Matthiessen and a Writer's Sport (unpublished)
Unpublished interview/fanboy love letter to Peter Matthiessen
The Pleasures of the Damned (New York Times Book Review)
Charles Bukowski review, for the NYTBR
Steinbeck (Steinbeck society anthology)
Short essay on reading Steinbeck, Jim's dad, and his own youthful hitchhiker travels in California
Lauren Hutton's ABCs (Playboy)
Love letter to Lauren Hutton
Introduction to Residence on Earth by Pablo Neruda (New Directions edition of Residence on Earth)
Why I Write, Or Not (Why I Write: Thoughts on the Craft of Fiction ed Will Blythe)
Essay for Will Blythe anthology on writing, motivation, craft
Thoreau (written for Yves Jolviet in France, never published in English)
Dream as a Metaphor of Survival (Psychoanalytic Review)
An examination of dreams and compendium of some memorable ones, for the Psychoanalytic Review
Blue Panties (unpublished)
A whimsical meditation on the mysteries of sex and attraction, written after finding a pair of panties on a walk
Wisdom (written for France, unpublished as far as we know)
Dog Years: On Hunting
Dog Years (Field & Stream)
A life through the dogs he owned and hunted with, for Field & Stream
A New Map of the Sacred Territory (Esquire Sportsman)
On hunting and seeing one's familiar territory anew
Delta Hunt (for Esquire, never published?)
Hunting wild turkey in the Mississippi Delta
The Misadventure Journals (Field & Stream)
Funny, thoughtful accounts of some major scrapes Jim got into in the great outdoors
Hunting with a Friend: On Good Friends and Foul Weather (For a Handful of Feathers intro, first serial to Sports Afield)
Essay about his long friendship with Guy de la Valdène, originally published as introduction to For a Handful of Feathers
Marching to a Different Drummer (Sports Illustrated)
Hunting grouse, who ?drum? (a sustained burst of wing beating without flying, done as a display by the males)
Meditations on Hunting (unpublished)
Spring Coda (Esquire Sportsman)
On the coming of spring and a meditation on hunting in general
Michigan, Montana, and Other Sacred Places
A Prairie Prologue in Nebraska (New York Times)
Written for the New York Times, an homage to one of his favorite places, immortalized in Dalva and The Road Home
Not Quite Leaving Michigan (These United States)
On his decision to leave Michigan for Montana
Old, Faithful, and Mysterious (Sports Illustrated)
Written for the 100th anniversary of Yellowstone Park, reportage and personal account of a fishing trip there with Tom McGuane and others
Safely without Portfolio in Key West (Outside)
Classic piece on Key West and the excesses and transcendence it inspires simultaneously
Pie in the Sky (Esquire Sportsman)
The Beginner's Mind (Heart of the Land, anthology benefiting )
Learning Montana, or Turn Me Loose
Getting to know Montana as a relatively new transplant
Life on the Border (Men's Journal)
Written for Men's Journal, a moving essay observing the folly of our border policy, inspired by the death of a young Mexican woman
The Beginner: and Other Journalism
The Beginner Meets the Eight Samurai (unpublished)
Covering a local tennis championship
A Delicate Creature (unpublished)
Reportage on sharks, including an interview with one of the founders of the American shark-tagging research project
Real Big Brown Truck (Automobile)
Car journalism mingled with Harrisonian concerns about place
Floating: On Fishing, and on the Water
On the Water (Sports Afloat, Time Life Books anthology)
Starting Over (Men's Journal)
The Mad Marlin of Punta Carnero (True Magazine)
Fishing a Watershed (unpublished)
The Beauty of the Jump (Men's Journal)
A River Never Sleeps (Esquire)
Floating (Sports Illustrated)
Early Fishing (In Search of Small Gods)
