Genre: Novel
Grade: A
Notable People: Jim Harrison
Title: Brown Dog
Review –OK- I am a serial reader…can’t stay away from the writers I like and as I’ve said before, I believe jim Harrison to be our greatest American living writer. He happens to also be the absolute master of the novella form- a disappearing art. Harrison at one time was viewed as the second coming of Hemingway with his folksy, macho, great north woods, man against nature style…but he softened considerably over the years and has written a series of novels from the first person feminine- which really blew away his critics. Twenty year ago- he introduced the world to Brown Dog (BD)- a some % Ashkinabe Indian in Michigan’s UP- who is a man living by wits alone. Some see him as a n’er do well, others a modern version of Huck Finn. Some may be put off by his sexual encounters (he describes his lack of concentration and getting trouble as a “pussy trance”)- but he is quite lovable and in his own way, quite the pure American philosopher. So after 20 plus years- Harrison has assembled all his BD novellas into one chronological book offering and updated it with a new one. These are fascinating in that they are sequential- but each one also can stand alone- as he recaps all the previous works subtly in each one. I laughed, I cried, I decided to move to the UP and have my own trance. Love this stuff.