[bksvol-discuss] Submitted: Off to the Side: A Memoir
- From: "Rik James" <d28rik@xxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2006 10:49:14 -0700
TITLE: Off to the Side: A Memoir
AUTHOR: Jim Harrison
YEAR OF COPYRIGHT: 2002
GENRE: Non-fiction, memoir
How Many Pages: 313 pp.
SHORT DESCRIPTION: 200 character limit (with spaces)
(char. w/ spaces 166)
An earthy, frank memoir by author, screenwriter and poet Jim Harrison. His
works include: Legends of the Fall, Dalva, The Woman Lit by Fireflies,
Warlock, Plain Song)
ISBN #:
0-87113-860-3
LONGER DESCRIPTION:
From the book jacket:
For nearly forty years Jim Harrison has been one of America's most beloved
writers, a literary giant who has given us American classics like Dalva,
Legends of the Fall, and The Road Home. And he is perhaps just as loved for
the spirit from which he writes?devoted to the senses, staunchly
unpretentious, and ever mindful of the dangers of straying too far from our
origins. It is this spirit of which The Oregonian wrote, "The magic of
writing as good as Harrison's is that it can bridge the gulf of human
separation." Now, for the first time, Jim Harrison has put pen to paper to
write about his own life?a life that he captures with a riveting directness
and a delightful, resonant music.
In Off to the Side, which Publishers Weekly praised as "a worthy capstone to
a fascinating career," Harrison writes about his upbringing in Michigan, the
austerities of life amid the Depression and the Second World War, and the
seemingly greater austerities of his starchy Swedish forebears, who have
inspired so much of his writing. He traces his coming-of-age, from a boy
drunk with books to a young man making his way among fellow writers he
deeply admired?writers like Tom McGuane, Philip Caputo, Peter Matthiessen,
Robert Lowell, W. H. Auden, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and Allen
Ginsberg, among others.
Harrison writes forthrightly about the life-changing experience of becoming
a father, and the minor cognitive dissonance when this boy from the
"heartland" somehow ended up a highly paid Hollywood screenwriter. He gives
free rein to his "seven obsessions"? alcohol, France, stripping, hunting and
fishing (and the dogs who have accompanied him in both), religion, the road,
and our place in the natural world?which he elucidates with earthy wisdom
and an elegant sense of connectedness. He returns always to his love of
literature?from his first awakenings to the power of writing in his teens,
and his youthful decision to model himself on Rimbaud, to how books have
remained his center, sustaining him during the darkest times of his life.
Above all, he delivers a joyful, meditative, candid, and wise book that is a
paean to the complex delights of life. The London Sunday Times has written
that Jim Harrison is "a writer with immortality in him." Now, for the first
time, the personal stories and unbridled enthusiasms that feed Harrison's
magisterial fiction are available to his readers. Off to the Side is a work
of great beauty and importance, a triumphant achievement that captures the
writing life and brings us all clues for living.
VOLUNTEER COMMENTS:
This book of non-fiction was scanned using Kurzweil K-1000 version 10.05.
Pages were normalized, headers removed, ranked spelling was run. Very few
errors. Submitted in RTF, KES copy still available if desired.
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