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The Summer He Didn't Die
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.
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.
277 pages, Hardcover
First published July 5, 2005
77 people are currently reading
420 people want to read
About the author
Jim Harrison
185 books1,490 followersJim Harrison was born in Grayling, Michigan, to Winfield Sprague Harrison, a county agricultural agent, and Norma Olivia (Wahlgren) Harrison, both avid readers. He married Linda King in 1959 with whom he has two daughters.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969-70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007).
Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969-70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007).
Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
February 15, 2015
Another collection of three novellas, each in three parts. So high marks for symmetry.
The Summer He Didn't Die
Another installment in the recurring Brown Dog story. I can't help liking the goofy protagonist. Nothing profound here. Just B.D. and his relationships: with his frugal 'uncle' Delmore; with his 'stepchildren' Red and (especially) Berry; with his 'girlfriend' Gretchen; and with a world to which he can not possible conform. There's a tenderness here which never fails to warm me.
Republican Wives
I don't like stereotypes, not in life and not in art. Maybe especially not in art, where a name, gender, nationality or other group becomes a punchline. Where it only works with people who are like the artist. A private joke. I don't like when David Foster Wallace does it, and I didn't like it here, with Jim Harrison.
Three women, friends from their University of Michigan days, married 'Republicans' and are now miserable. It's their husbands' fault. Because, it seems, for 'Republican' men, oral sex is a one-way street. I'm not kidding. So, all three of the women engage in adulterous affairs, to include Daryl, a total shit, a 'poet' they know from their Ann Arbor days. Daryl's shittiness is so total that he sends nude photos of the women to their respective husbands. Daryl narrowly avoids a homicide attempt by Martha, and the Republican husbands come to Martha's rescue with their money and lawyers. Daryl comes out the only winner. There's a moral there somewhere.
Tracking
This last one is a memoir actually, but written in the third person. When you start writing about yourself in the third person it might be time to take the Underwood away. Writing is hard work, he says. Depends, I says.
The Summer He Didn't Die
Another installment in the recurring Brown Dog story. I can't help liking the goofy protagonist. Nothing profound here. Just B.D. and his relationships: with his frugal 'uncle' Delmore; with his 'stepchildren' Red and (especially) Berry; with his 'girlfriend' Gretchen; and with a world to which he can not possible conform. There's a tenderness here which never fails to warm me.
Republican Wives
I don't like stereotypes, not in life and not in art. Maybe especially not in art, where a name, gender, nationality or other group becomes a punchline. Where it only works with people who are like the artist. A private joke. I don't like when David Foster Wallace does it, and I didn't like it here, with Jim Harrison.
Three women, friends from their University of Michigan days, married 'Republicans' and are now miserable. It's their husbands' fault. Because, it seems, for 'Republican' men, oral sex is a one-way street. I'm not kidding. So, all three of the women engage in adulterous affairs, to include Daryl, a total shit, a 'poet' they know from their Ann Arbor days. Daryl's shittiness is so total that he sends nude photos of the women to their respective husbands. Daryl narrowly avoids a homicide attempt by Martha, and the Republican husbands come to Martha's rescue with their money and lawyers. Daryl comes out the only winner. There's a moral there somewhere.
Tracking
This last one is a memoir actually, but written in the third person. When you start writing about yourself in the third person it might be time to take the Underwood away. Writing is hard work, he says. Depends, I says.
July 5, 2007
This book contained 3 novellas...the first did nothing for me, the second was fun, and the third (more autobiography and reflection than fiction)was very thought provoking. This third piece, called Tracking, delved into creation of art, nature of life, and the mystery of it all in really heavy and heady, but solid, ways. I'd highly recommend Tracking and think I'm going to try Harrison's poetry to see if it's similar to that piece. His writing is unique and powerful.
Read
June 25, 2020These three novellas, each one striking for its individuality, are immensely satisfying. The longer-than-a-story-but-shorter-than-a-novel format seems to be perfect for each narrative. My favorite character in The Summer He Didn’t Die, the title novella, is Berry, a child who is born of alcohol fetal syndrome. She is mute but indicates by her actions, quick and sprite-like, how she shall act upon the world and its many rules. Most of the action is of her family (excepting her wayward mother) evading Michigan’s children’s protective agency and depositing their lives over the border in Canada so that Berry can live out her life in peace. Republican Wives, hilarious for its verisimilitude (uncannily written for a male writer), takes readers inside the minds of three different women, friends since childhood, who have been hoodwinked for the last time by a man (also a college acquaintance) with whom they have all had affairs (mostly at different times). Tracking tells the story of an author who outlines his literary career and personal life, from feckless yet ardent college boy to a grandpa, finally finished with world travel and content to be near his grown children and grandchildren. The collection is a great testament to the novella form in which it is just the right length to tell each one of these stories.
April 3, 2012
This is tough, I wish i could give it 3 and a 1/2. The first is about a reoccurring character, Brown Dog, who I really love reading about. If I could just rate that story, I would give it a 5. Harrison really uses BD to simplify the human condition in a way that is memorable and relatable in an odd way. The middle story was very disappointing. It went on an on (something I usually don't mind from this author), but in this case it was pretty uninteresting. The final story was good as well, but I enjoyed the first tale the most. If you have read the others with Brown Dog, this is a must read to revisit the character
Read
September 12, 2025I make it a point to read one or two short stories everyday, if I can. One of my sources for finding stories worth reading is The Story Prize. Jim Harrison’s The Summer He Didn’t Die did not win the prize, but it was a finalist in 2005.
Let me say a few words about the author. By my count, Jim Harrison published twenty-five novellas. When you consider how few people actually buy and read novellas, this is a large number. Harrison also published fourteen books of poetry. Obviously, poetry sells even less than novellas. Harrison was a decidedly non-commercial writer who, for most of the 1970s lived below the poverty line. However, he is an important voice in literary fiction who deserves to be read and discovered by a new generation of readers and writers.
People usually summarize the plot when they review a book. Instead of providing a plot summary, I would, instead, like to share three quotations that I liked from the book.
There was enough of his early religious phase left in him that he could again give thanks for the mystery of female beauty, her graceful butt protruding like a barnyard duck’s. A little badge on her chest gave her the soft name of Nancy and she was doubtless the type that took a shower and changed her underpants every single day (p. 47).
The most exhilarating aspect of living in the Upper Peninsula, unlike Ann Arbor, was discovering how slow the people were to complain about life’s brutal vagaries. The working class didn’t complain about hangovers because if you had enough money to get drunk in the first place you were in fine shape (p. 74).
Martha was saying something to Frances which I partially missed in the noise of the jet engines’ thrust to the effect that sex was similar to good pistachios in that you couldn’t stop devouring once you started. It was breath-takingly inane but probably true (p. 167).
I enjoyed reading The Summer He Didn’t Die and recommend the book. In fact, I think just about everything Harrison wrote is worth your time.
kindle and audible audiobook. 277 pgs. 12 September 2025.
Let me say a few words about the author. By my count, Jim Harrison published twenty-five novellas. When you consider how few people actually buy and read novellas, this is a large number. Harrison also published fourteen books of poetry. Obviously, poetry sells even less than novellas. Harrison was a decidedly non-commercial writer who, for most of the 1970s lived below the poverty line. However, he is an important voice in literary fiction who deserves to be read and discovered by a new generation of readers and writers.
People usually summarize the plot when they review a book. Instead of providing a plot summary, I would, instead, like to share three quotations that I liked from the book.
There was enough of his early religious phase left in him that he could again give thanks for the mystery of female beauty, her graceful butt protruding like a barnyard duck’s. A little badge on her chest gave her the soft name of Nancy and she was doubtless the type that took a shower and changed her underpants every single day (p. 47).
The most exhilarating aspect of living in the Upper Peninsula, unlike Ann Arbor, was discovering how slow the people were to complain about life’s brutal vagaries. The working class didn’t complain about hangovers because if you had enough money to get drunk in the first place you were in fine shape (p. 74).
Martha was saying something to Frances which I partially missed in the noise of the jet engines’ thrust to the effect that sex was similar to good pistachios in that you couldn’t stop devouring once you started. It was breath-takingly inane but probably true (p. 167).
I enjoyed reading The Summer He Didn’t Die and recommend the book. In fact, I think just about everything Harrison wrote is worth your time.
kindle and audible audiobook. 277 pgs. 12 September 2025.
March 4, 2021
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/th...
...Who said that there really is no past, only what we remember?...
I read the first novella in the stories collected in the book titled Brown Dog. Given that the Brown Dog novellas are some of Harrison’s most beloved works I will restrain myself in light of my not feeling the same way, as a whole, about them. The character of Brown Dog is loveable enough but the continuing tale wore me out and began to be a bit boring. The second novella in this collection, Republican Wives, also failed to do anything for me on a literary or entertainment level. Just not my cup of tea as I know Harrison can do much better. Republican Wives could very well be the worst writing I have ever read by Jim Harrison.
...The morning was colored with Monday…
No matter how much Harrison’s writing generally fails to impress in this collection, there is always the occasional gem to enjoy and be glad in its recognition. I come to Harrison for the quality of his insights and astounding use of the language and made-up worlds for his readers to immerse themselves in. Not only is he clever but his love for his own obsessive and continuously dirty mind is a welcome diversion from the moral police today occupying their pillars of sanctity and pretentious wholesomeness. Due to the #MeToo movement Harrison might find it difficult if he was new to the scene and attempting in these times to make it as a writer.
...She slapped him for no reason and showed him her breasts which were flat like his own, if not flatter…
I chuckled to myself when I read the above sentence, especially when he added, as an afterthought, “if not flatter”. Unbridled honesty carries great weight in literature even when the subject matter is to some unseemly, and for most, unspoken. It is possible that every heterosexual man thinks unsavory thoughts about sex, and women especially, and what one might do in order as they say to get one’s rocks off. Thoughts and desires do not make it wrong. Our actions do. Embracing our darker natures and realizing our own personal character defects as natural and not something to reject or despise or be ashamed of would be helpful in accepting ourselves as normal human beings. I am concerned the #MeToo movement will go too far in suppressing and shaming behaviors that some couples actually enjoy together, and there is nothing wrong with patting an ass or even grabbing a pussy (something I could never personally get my head around) if the partners both enjoy the activity. No means no, and that is where it should end. In Harrison’s fiction both men and women take liberties with the opposite sex. Doesn’t make it right, it just is in the world he has created. It will be interesting to observe how his work holds up in the years to come.
...or trying to get your hands below the waist, the Great Wall of China, of your cheerleader girlfriend, an amazingly dense girl who was nevertheless very pretty…
The last novella in this collection was the cream of the crop. Tracking was definitely a memoir, adding and enlarging on Harrison’s earlier fantastic full-length memoir Off to the Side. Here he fleshed-out in more detail many of the anecdotes he wrote of in that first memoir. He also brought us up to date as the family had moved out to Montana and he had sold his beloved Michigan cabin in the Upper Peninsula. As in his many other works of art, Harrison is forever revealing his sexual proclivities, obsessions, and desires and is unashamed of his feelings and thoughts about females. It is something I find refreshing in Harrison’s work. He is communicating to those of us with ears to listen.
...Reading Immanuel Kant, or even Reinhold Niebuhr, made him feel humiliated by his lack of comprehension…
As did I. But then Gordon Lish taught me how to read philosophy. Lish, being a huge Gilles Deleuze fan and also Giorgio Agamben just to mention two, I was afraid I would not comprehend these thoughts. But Gordon taught me to read for literary enjoyment and all that mattered was when a phrase or sentence, a word, caught my attention so I could take what I wanted from the texts. I was never afraid again to read philosophy as I was getting exactly what I wanted from reading it.
...He was told that Ludwig had stolen Saul Bellow’s wife but there was the question of how a wife could be stolen unless she was willing…
Harrison always leaves me breadcrumbs so I can find my way home. For years I have been blamed and ridiculed for stealing my stepchildren’s mother from their father. I am happy to own this stain, if true. But it takes two.
...Within the limitations of a livelihood people seek out a habitat for habits of their souls, and likely this process begins in childhood, and the chances of finding the right place to live out your life are, for economic reasons, small indeed…
Amen. I am envious of those of us who can settle into a place for their entire lives. I often think how different my life would have been had I bought a few acres in the woods and carved out a homestead through the years, adding an outbuilding here and there, an addition to the house, a barn, a few animals. Today I am renovating what I hope to be the last house I own. I am making art with my building talents. I expect to feel joy in my later years for what we have eventually fashioned from this original tiny house.
...Drunkenness fed the need for a woman that never could have existed, a place to live the totality of which could only find itself in the imagination, and an unfocused ambition to write with a degree of excellence that had never been accomplished except in a drunken mind…
Having been sober myself now for over thirty-five years I find my imagination, fantasies, and desires to be even more pronounced and unyielding. It is really all I have. As the great songwriter Lyle Lovett says, “I live in my own mind.”
...If depression is largely an inability to accept life as it is, then what could we possibly expect?...
Another Amen for Harrison! Got to be proactive in life. “Get up and do it again” , as Jackson Brown proclaims in his song The Pretender.
...We are wherever we’ve been, among other things…
Tracker is a novella/memoir definitely worth reading.
...Who said that there really is no past, only what we remember?...
I read the first novella in the stories collected in the book titled Brown Dog. Given that the Brown Dog novellas are some of Harrison’s most beloved works I will restrain myself in light of my not feeling the same way, as a whole, about them. The character of Brown Dog is loveable enough but the continuing tale wore me out and began to be a bit boring. The second novella in this collection, Republican Wives, also failed to do anything for me on a literary or entertainment level. Just not my cup of tea as I know Harrison can do much better. Republican Wives could very well be the worst writing I have ever read by Jim Harrison.
...The morning was colored with Monday…
No matter how much Harrison’s writing generally fails to impress in this collection, there is always the occasional gem to enjoy and be glad in its recognition. I come to Harrison for the quality of his insights and astounding use of the language and made-up worlds for his readers to immerse themselves in. Not only is he clever but his love for his own obsessive and continuously dirty mind is a welcome diversion from the moral police today occupying their pillars of sanctity and pretentious wholesomeness. Due to the #MeToo movement Harrison might find it difficult if he was new to the scene and attempting in these times to make it as a writer.
...She slapped him for no reason and showed him her breasts which were flat like his own, if not flatter…
I chuckled to myself when I read the above sentence, especially when he added, as an afterthought, “if not flatter”. Unbridled honesty carries great weight in literature even when the subject matter is to some unseemly, and for most, unspoken. It is possible that every heterosexual man thinks unsavory thoughts about sex, and women especially, and what one might do in order as they say to get one’s rocks off. Thoughts and desires do not make it wrong. Our actions do. Embracing our darker natures and realizing our own personal character defects as natural and not something to reject or despise or be ashamed of would be helpful in accepting ourselves as normal human beings. I am concerned the #MeToo movement will go too far in suppressing and shaming behaviors that some couples actually enjoy together, and there is nothing wrong with patting an ass or even grabbing a pussy (something I could never personally get my head around) if the partners both enjoy the activity. No means no, and that is where it should end. In Harrison’s fiction both men and women take liberties with the opposite sex. Doesn’t make it right, it just is in the world he has created. It will be interesting to observe how his work holds up in the years to come.
...or trying to get your hands below the waist, the Great Wall of China, of your cheerleader girlfriend, an amazingly dense girl who was nevertheless very pretty…
The last novella in this collection was the cream of the crop. Tracking was definitely a memoir, adding and enlarging on Harrison’s earlier fantastic full-length memoir Off to the Side. Here he fleshed-out in more detail many of the anecdotes he wrote of in that first memoir. He also brought us up to date as the family had moved out to Montana and he had sold his beloved Michigan cabin in the Upper Peninsula. As in his many other works of art, Harrison is forever revealing his sexual proclivities, obsessions, and desires and is unashamed of his feelings and thoughts about females. It is something I find refreshing in Harrison’s work. He is communicating to those of us with ears to listen.
...Reading Immanuel Kant, or even Reinhold Niebuhr, made him feel humiliated by his lack of comprehension…
As did I. But then Gordon Lish taught me how to read philosophy. Lish, being a huge Gilles Deleuze fan and also Giorgio Agamben just to mention two, I was afraid I would not comprehend these thoughts. But Gordon taught me to read for literary enjoyment and all that mattered was when a phrase or sentence, a word, caught my attention so I could take what I wanted from the texts. I was never afraid again to read philosophy as I was getting exactly what I wanted from reading it.
...He was told that Ludwig had stolen Saul Bellow’s wife but there was the question of how a wife could be stolen unless she was willing…
Harrison always leaves me breadcrumbs so I can find my way home. For years I have been blamed and ridiculed for stealing my stepchildren’s mother from their father. I am happy to own this stain, if true. But it takes two.
...Within the limitations of a livelihood people seek out a habitat for habits of their souls, and likely this process begins in childhood, and the chances of finding the right place to live out your life are, for economic reasons, small indeed…
Amen. I am envious of those of us who can settle into a place for their entire lives. I often think how different my life would have been had I bought a few acres in the woods and carved out a homestead through the years, adding an outbuilding here and there, an addition to the house, a barn, a few animals. Today I am renovating what I hope to be the last house I own. I am making art with my building talents. I expect to feel joy in my later years for what we have eventually fashioned from this original tiny house.
...Drunkenness fed the need for a woman that never could have existed, a place to live the totality of which could only find itself in the imagination, and an unfocused ambition to write with a degree of excellence that had never been accomplished except in a drunken mind…
Having been sober myself now for over thirty-five years I find my imagination, fantasies, and desires to be even more pronounced and unyielding. It is really all I have. As the great songwriter Lyle Lovett says, “I live in my own mind.”
...If depression is largely an inability to accept life as it is, then what could we possibly expect?...
Another Amen for Harrison! Got to be proactive in life. “Get up and do it again” , as Jackson Brown proclaims in his song The Pretender.
...We are wherever we’ve been, among other things…
Tracker is a novella/memoir definitely worth reading.
Read
February 5, 2009Harrison is arguably America's master of the novella, and critics praise him for conquering such a challenging literary form. "The Summer He Didn't Die" evokes Harrison's previous Brown Dog stories__here narrating Brown Dog's latest adventures__to please longtime fans, though even sympathetic critics concede that this latest collection is perhaps not his best. Some critics were surprised at the inclusion of the autobiographical "Tracking" so closely on the heels of Harrison's 2002 memoir, Off to the Side.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
February 13, 2009
3 novellas, but I give it 4 stars for the last novella, "Trackings," which is a very fine portrait of Harrison as a writer.
April 16, 2018
2.5 stars
The Summer He Didn’t Die was the book club choice of a member who really loves books set in the American West. It was written by Jim Harrison, the author of Legend of the Fall. I also love books set in the American West so I was looking forward to it,.
It turns out that The Summer He Didn’t Die is a collection of three novellas. Nothing wrong with novellas, if they are well written, which they were. In these novellas it was the story line that didn’t deliver. Here’s my vvery brief summary of each novella:
1. The Summer He Didn’t Die is set in northern Michigan. It’s the tale of Brown Dog, a middle-aged guy. His redeeming quality is that he has taken on two abandoned children who no one wants. The tale, however, is primarily about how he has sex with every woman within their small rural community and anyone who pass through. Not a fun read for me.
2. Republican Womeen is the story of four women who meet in college and continue to stay friends until they are now married and in their forties. There are two things they have in common: thy have plenty of money and all four have had an affair with the same man, a guy they met in college. I didn’t like even one of them.
3. Trackings seems to be the author’s memoir or autobiography. This one was actually rather interesting. He was so well read and I enjoyed his references to the books he read.
A book no one likes makes for a short book discussion. We gave it our best and persisted for, maybe, half an hour. Fortunately, we all like each other and can move on to other books, movies, TV shows, politics, grandkids, and so forth. Next month we’re reading one of my picks: Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler. It’s the modern take on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I’ve already read it and truly enjoyed it. I think my friens will too.
The Summer He Didn’t Die was the book club choice of a member who really loves books set in the American West. It was written by Jim Harrison, the author of Legend of the Fall. I also love books set in the American West so I was looking forward to it,.
It turns out that The Summer He Didn’t Die is a collection of three novellas. Nothing wrong with novellas, if they are well written, which they were. In these novellas it was the story line that didn’t deliver. Here’s my vvery brief summary of each novella:
1. The Summer He Didn’t Die is set in northern Michigan. It’s the tale of Brown Dog, a middle-aged guy. His redeeming quality is that he has taken on two abandoned children who no one wants. The tale, however, is primarily about how he has sex with every woman within their small rural community and anyone who pass through. Not a fun read for me.
2. Republican Womeen is the story of four women who meet in college and continue to stay friends until they are now married and in their forties. There are two things they have in common: thy have plenty of money and all four have had an affair with the same man, a guy they met in college. I didn’t like even one of them.
3. Trackings seems to be the author’s memoir or autobiography. This one was actually rather interesting. He was so well read and I enjoyed his references to the books he read.
A book no one likes makes for a short book discussion. We gave it our best and persisted for, maybe, half an hour. Fortunately, we all like each other and can move on to other books, movies, TV shows, politics, grandkids, and so forth. Next month we’re reading one of my picks: Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler. It’s the modern take on Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. I’ve already read it and truly enjoyed it. I think my friens will too.
August 29, 2023
When Jim is cooking, and not trying to write as women, the sentences come pre-buttered. Buttressed if you will. Four stars only because Republican Wives I could only read two pages deep. Not my bag, baby.
Our friend Brown Dog has one of his most tender adventures smuggling Berry into Canada, makes a man realize you have to honor the Delmore’s in your life however few if there is any hope to become one, and nothing but solidarity with falling for inaccessible lesbians. There there, comrade.
Tracking and The Summer put this up against Julip but again, the center does not hold. Tracking’s inner monologue goes from pre-listicle natural beauty to shameless self-portrait in a blink. Shameful in places too because I actually liked Farmer - you suck, readers of the late 70’s! The backhalf is just lights out. They need to make a No Skips podcast for sections of books. All midwesterners must see the Florida Keys. Gems galore for any aging artist of any kind of aging. You think time is the only thing that ages you? There there, comrade
Our friend Brown Dog has one of his most tender adventures smuggling Berry into Canada, makes a man realize you have to honor the Delmore’s in your life however few if there is any hope to become one, and nothing but solidarity with falling for inaccessible lesbians. There there, comrade.
Tracking and The Summer put this up against Julip but again, the center does not hold. Tracking’s inner monologue goes from pre-listicle natural beauty to shameless self-portrait in a blink. Shameful in places too because I actually liked Farmer - you suck, readers of the late 70’s! The backhalf is just lights out. They need to make a No Skips podcast for sections of books. All midwesterners must see the Florida Keys. Gems galore for any aging artist of any kind of aging. You think time is the only thing that ages you? There there, comrade
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 17, 2025
Three stories. Set in Michigan. All at least 100 pages in length.
The first two stories were slow. A Chippewa woodsman just barely making it with two step children, one of whom has fetal alcohol syndrome and is going to be taken to a state home hundreds of miles away. A decent guy with problems and not much ambition but he has a good heart and knows his step daughter belongs in the woods with her people. The second story is about three rich white women who all end up having affairs with the same man. Each of them has a turn at narrating. These two stories were an ordeal. Two stars.
The third story is about a boy from the UP with an injured eye who leaves and hits the road and becomes a writer. It has three parts describing what he saw as a boy, man, and older man. It's quite an insightful story on living life and one can't help but wonder how biographical it is. It's deep and introspective. Harrison even has an afterword discussing this story.
The first two stories were slow. A Chippewa woodsman just barely making it with two step children, one of whom has fetal alcohol syndrome and is going to be taken to a state home hundreds of miles away. A decent guy with problems and not much ambition but he has a good heart and knows his step daughter belongs in the woods with her people. The second story is about three rich white women who all end up having affairs with the same man. Each of them has a turn at narrating. These two stories were an ordeal. Two stars.
The third story is about a boy from the UP with an injured eye who leaves and hits the road and becomes a writer. It has three parts describing what he saw as a boy, man, and older man. It's quite an insightful story on living life and one can't help but wonder how biographical it is. It's deep and introspective. Harrison even has an afterword discussing this story.
December 4, 2022
What a wonderful book to pick up and read without expectation. Not realizing this was a collection of 3 seemingly unrelated novellas, I stumbled through 2 traditional Harrison stories, witty and chalked full of philosophic observations on love and the outdoors, then landed hard in Harrison's fascinating biography written in the 3rd person. "The brain is just the weight of God." If you like Harrison's writing, read this one.
"He came to the conclusion that is was less the fishing than the day-to-day presence of water, the nature of which to him was still as undefinably mysterious as it had been in his childhood when the passion had begun with the cool pellucid lake or gently moving rivers of the northern Michigan forests."
"He came to the conclusion that is was less the fishing than the day-to-day presence of water, the nature of which to him was still as undefinably mysterious as it had been in his childhood when the passion had begun with the cool pellucid lake or gently moving rivers of the northern Michigan forests."
August 1, 2024
Another excellent collection of novellas from one of this country's finest authors. The eponymous first story features the familiar character Brown Dog in an unfamiliar brush with domesticity. "Republican Wives" chronicles the story of three lifelong friends who unexpectedly bond over a shared misadventure, and "Tracking" is an insightful autobiography in 3 parts. Highly recommended.
November 20, 2017
Several short stories that revolve around Michigan. I wish I had read the book, instead of audio. The narrator didn't even create devisions between the stories. My favorite story is of the author at the end of the book and how he looks back on his life and writing.
August 21, 2020
Three novellas: First is one of his Brown Dog stories. I’m not a big fan, as I think the character is mediocre. Second store about Republican Housewives was kind of weird, totally unmemorable. Last was an autobiographical piece which was fascinating, if you are a Jim Harrison fan.
May 5, 2024
recommendation from jackson. really enjoy brown dog’s stories. republican wives was well written but i don’t think i have the patience to read about wealthy white women’s problems. got me on an american fiction kick.
March 25, 2025
Vaunted Vocabulary
Jim Harrison is a master story teller who summarizes like no other. His ability to shift gears mid-sentence is a skill that sets a reader's soul free on the open road of reading.
Jim Harrison is a master story teller who summarizes like no other. His ability to shift gears mid-sentence is a skill that sets a reader's soul free on the open road of reading.
May 23, 2017
At some point, probably in the near future, I'll have read all of Jim Harrison's Brown Dog novellas, and that makes me sad.
August 29, 2017
I think I preferred the titular novella over the rest of the works.
January 13, 2018
A great collection of stories. Jim Harrison is steadily becoming one of my favorites.
March 31, 2018
I love his writing. This is a collection of three short stories. He’s written 25 books. I have a feeling that I need to read them all.
December 30, 2018
re-read.
my
favorite
author
ever.
my
favorite
author
ever.
February 14, 2019
Re-read this after reading the first novella here in Brown Dog. That's great, the second one, only so-so, but the third, about the author himself, is great.
May 20, 2019
DNF, tries too hard
April 2, 2020
I was so into the first story, I didn't want it to end. I didn't realize there were 3 stories in there.
December 10, 2020
I love Harrison's novellas. He is a master. I highly recommend.
March 30, 2024
Another wonderful collection from a master of the novella.
August 15, 2025
2nd & 3rd stories only
November 11, 2024
Three different novellas but each one covers some aspect of what it means to be human.
I didn't have time to finish the last one but I feel that was the least narrative one. All the characters have some hilarious attributes although the situations are far from comedic.
I didn't have time to finish the last one but I feel that was the least narrative one. All the characters have some hilarious attributes although the situations are far from comedic.
April 29, 2019
Livre composé de 3 nouvelles. J’ai beaucoup aimé la 1ère partie. Brown Dog est un personnage... Les 2 autres nouvelles m’ont déçues
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