Off To The Side

For nearly forty years, Jim Harrison has been one of America's most beloved writers: now he has put pen to paper to write about his own life - a life that is the root of his wonderful fiction, and which he captures with a riveting directness and a delightful, peculiar music. He writes about his upbringing in Michigan; the austerities of life amid the Depression and the Second World War; the seemingly greater austerities of his starchy Swedish forebears; and how a boy from the "heartland" somehow ended up a highly paid Hollywood screenwriter and world-renowned novelist. Always books have remained his center, sustaining him during the darkest times of his life. He gives free rein to his "seven obsessions" - alcohol, food, stripping, hunting and fishing (and dogs), religion, the road, and our place in the natural world - which he elucidates with earthy wisdom and an elegant sense of connectedness. Above all, he delivers a joyful, meditative, candid, and wise book that is a paean to the complex delights of life. THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW has written that Jim Harrison's work is "a big, wet, sloppy kiss (that) Harrison continues to plant on the face of life itself." Now, for the first time, Harrison has been willing to share his immense spirit with readers in a most personal way. OFF TO THE SIDE is a work of great beauty and importance that is sure to delight.