When you grow up somewhere small and slow and out of the way, somewhere abundant with lakes and trees and animals, hunter's orange and work boots and trucks, somewhere hours north of where important and dramatic and fast things happen, it will be a big deal when your English teacher introduces you to Jim Harrison — who writes about nearby places like yours, places you know. He sticks to you and from then on he will be your favorite author. You will buy every single book he writes. Even a university press title of conversations with him. His collection of food writing, his poetry. All of it. And you will give him the top shelf of your bookcase, even if that means other authors end up on the floor. In every bookstore you go in, you check to see if they carry his work — your barometer for a good bookstore. You don’t devour these titles right when you buy them. You save them for when you will be in the woods, or by a river. You will need nature as the backdrop for reading him.
My high school English teacher introduced me to Jim Harrison’s work in 11th grade. I wrote a paper comparing Wolf, A Good Day to Die, and Warlock. I believe I faulted the author for his portrayal of women, but it didn’t keep me from loving him. I recall these books being shelved in the school library away from the student offerings, on a smallish shelf of titles for teachers and other adults. I felt I was part of a special club of kids trusted to handle and appreciate this adult art. The next year, after I placed third in a statewide poetry contest for high school kids, My English teacher and his wife at the time, my creative writing teacher, took me north to see Jim Harrison read at Interlochen Center for the Arts. I was blown away. Standing at a podium, sipping on a bottle of schnapps, reading poetry you wrote — that was a job?! After the reading, we approached the podium to say hello. I recall my creative writing teacher telling Mr. Harrison that I was a poet, had won a prize, and had written a term paper on him. I recall him mumbling something encouraging and discouraging at the same time.
Fast forward a few years to college. My roommate Jane and I drove a few hours north — always north — to the Leelenau Pennisula to stake out a bar where Jim Harrison was known to hang out. We never saw him. A few more years later, I was running a reading series in Boston at Brookline Booksmith when our store won Publisher’s Weekly bookseller of the year. To celebrate, we got to go to the BEA conference in Chicago and I ended up at a dinner put on by his publisher, Grove Atlantic, where Jim Harrison was a guest of honor — likely to promote The Road Home. I was bursting to tell him about meeting him in high school, that I wrote a term paper on him, but when I tapped him on the shoulder to speak with him, he turned and looked at me and then turned his back to me, as if one look at me told him I was not worth his time. I was crushed. But I did not hold it against him. Fast forward a few more years, he was in the Boston area reading from True North. And I did get to speak to him and tell him about seeing him at Interlochen and he was gracious and friendly and very … Jim Harrison, smoking even though it was a non-smoking venue, drinking lots of red wine, asking for another bottle once the first was finished. There were many people in the crowd from Michigan, which I think surprised and touched him. It was good.
I know you weren't my friend, but you felt like one through your work, so goodbye, my friend. I miss you already, but you left us with so much of you. Because, as you said, “Death steals everything except our stories."