The English Major
Jim Harrison has been called a writer with immortality in him by London's Sunday Times, and the New York Times Book Review has written that [his] storytelling instincts are nearly flawless. Harrison's novel Returning to Earth was hailed by The Plain Dealer as an artistic achievement worthy of Faulkner.
The English Major is a wryly funny novel that sparkles with the generous humanity of Harrison's vision. In it, he sends Cliff -- a sixty-something former teacher, divorced and robbed of his farm by a real-estate shark of an ex-wife -- on a road trip across America. Armed with a childhood puzzle and a mission to rename all the states and state birds, Cliff's adventures take him through a whirlwind affair with a former student to a snake farm in Arizona owned by an old classmate to the high-octane existence of his big-time movie producer son in San Francisco. The English Major is the map of a man's journey into -- and out of -- himself, and it is vintage Harrison: reflective and sharp with wicked wit.
Jim Harrison has been called a writer with immortality in him by London's Sunday Times, and the New York Times Book Review has written that [his] storytelling instincts are nearly flawless. Harrison's novel Returning to Earth was hailed by The Plain Dealer as an artistic achievement worthy of Faulkner.
The English Major is a wryly funny novel that sparkles with the generous humanity of Harrison's vision. In it, he sends Cliff -- a sixty-something former teacher, divorced and robbed of his farm by a real-estate shark of an ex-wife -- on a road trip across America. Armed with a childhood puzzle and a mission to rename all the states and state birds, Cliff's adventures take him through a whirlwind affair with a former student to a snake farm in Arizona owned by an old classmate to the high-octane existence of his big-time movie producer son in San Francisco. The English Major is the map of a man's journey into -- and out of -- himself, and it is vintage Harrison: reflective and sharp with wicked wit.
| Published By | House of Anansi Press Inc — Sep 2, 2008 |
| Specifications | 264 pages | 5.63 in x 8.38 in |
| Keywords | Humorous; Men's Adventure; Literary; |
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| Written By | Jim Harrison is the author of more than twenty-five books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He divides his time between Michigan, Montana, and Arizona. |
| Written By |
| Jim Harrison is the author of more than twenty-five books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. He divides his time between Michigan, Montana, and Arizona. |
Commended, New York Times - 100 Notable Books, 2008
...funny, spirited...[Harrison] is consistently witty and engaging as he drives home his timeless theme: that change can be beneficial at any point in life.
...oddly mysterious...Harrison creates delicious comic tension.
A read-aloud-to-your-bedmate funny book...There isn't a false note...[Jim Harrison] writes like a dream...
Harrison is as wild and wonderful as ever.
Harrison's new novel...is as comfortably approachable as a creaky wooden swing on a farmhouse porch...It reminds you that fresh soil can be found below the most well pounded paths, that poetry can be found in even the most prosaic of predicaments.
Reconsideration of a life in ruins is terrifically funny and vintage Jim Harrison...a ruminative, sensitive portrayal of a man forced by circumstance to look back at how he's lived his life...a joy to read...a heady, intellectual, gutsy and wise depiction of a man wrestling with grief...