Jim Harrison | American Poet, Novelist & Essayist (2024)

Jim Harrison (born December 11, 1937, Grayling, Michigan, U.S.—died March 26, 2016, Patagonia, Arizona) was an American novelist and poet known for his lyrical treatment of the human struggle between nature and domesticity. Arguably his most famous work was Legends of the Fall (1979; films 1990 and 1994), a collection of three novellas about a Montana rancher and his three sons, the latter of whom all love the same woman.

Harrison grew up in northern Michigan. He attended Michigan State University (B.A., 1960; M.A., 1964) and briefly taught English at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He began his writing career as a poet. In his collections Plain Song (1965), Locations (1968), Walking (1967), and Outlyer and Ghazals (1969), critics noted a distinctive amalgam of earthy style and philosophical inquiry. Harrison also experimented with poetic forms, as exemplified by his use of the ghazal of ancient Persia.

Harrison’s first novel, Wolf (1971; film 1994), concerns the efforts of a disaffected man to view a wolf in the wilderness, an experience that he believes will cause his luck to change. A Good Day to Die (1973) treats the issue of the environment more cynically. Quandaries of love and work illumine Farmer (1976; filmed as Carried Away, 1996), but take on increasingly dark and obsessive overtones in Legends of the Fall (1979), Warlock (1981), and Sundog (1984). Harrison was especially praised for Dalva (1988; television film 1996), which featured his first female protagonist. The Road Home (1998) expounds upon the family saga begun in Dalva. Other collections of novellas include Julip (1994), The Beast God Forgot to Invent (2000), The Farmer’s Daughter (2010), The River Swimmer (2013), and The Ancient Minstrel (2016). His novellas about the misadventures of Brown Dog, a dissolute Native American, were collected in an eponymous volume (2013). Harrison’s later novels, many of which were set in Michigan and explored his preoccupations with family history, sexuality, and the natural world, include True North (2004), Returning to Earth (2007), The English Major (2008), and The Great Leader (2011) and its sequel, The Big Seven (2015).

Harrison’s later books of poetry include Letters to Yesenin (1973), Returning to Earth (1977), Selected and New Poems, 1961–1981 (1982), The Theory & Practice of Rivers (1985), After Ikkyū and Other Poems (1996), The Shape of the Journey (1998), Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry (2003; with Ted Kooser), Saving Daylight (2006), Songs of Unreason (2011), and Dead Man’s Float (2016).

Harrison also wrote nonfiction. The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand (2001) collected his essays on food culture. Off to the Side (2002) is a memoir. In 2007 Harrison was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.