…both of the novellas that make up Harrison's new book…dive into a watershed age with Harrison's signature gusto. Thad, the river swimmer, is 17 in every way; Clive, the art professor returning to the farm in The Land of Unlikeness, is 60. These two trenchant and visionary long stories are about the real human discomfort—and triumph—of being awake.
…it's no accident that Clive and Thad are both farm boys drawn to adventures "out in the world." Going and staying alike have consequences—frequently mortal ones in Harrison's previous work. Here, he's achieved a mood that approximates in modern terms the tranquility of Shakespeare's late romances. The existential uncertainties that always animate Harrison's fiction are not so much resolved as accepted for what they are: the basic fabric of existence, from which we pluck as much happiness as we can.
The two novellas that constitute Harrison’s fine new collection are, as usual, quite different in scope and content. “The Land of Unlikeness” features Clive, 60 and divorced for two decades (“the starkest rupture in his life”), taking advantage of a forced three-month leave from his professorship at an Ivy League college in New York to care for his octogenarian mother, now watching birds on the family farm in northern Michigan. His younger sister, Margaret, who is embarking on a month-long European vacation, informs Clive that his old high school flame Laurette is back in town. Clive reflects on his rift with his alienated daughter, Sabrina, while he rekindles his artist’s ambitions despite his thwarted early career as a painter. As Clive relates his rustic origins through frequent, wistful reminisces, he has a “crotch painting experience” with Laurette, who remains the “overwhelming love of his life.” Margaret’s return home from Europe coincides with Sabrina’s visit for a friendly family reunion. The short title novella, a tall tale set in northern Michigan, finds 17-year-old Thad Love, a swimming prodigy, after getting injured in a fight with his girlfriend’s father, improbably swimming over 100 miles to Chicago, where he meets a new girl who takes him to France, where Thad is more seriously injured swimming the Loire river. Harrison’s (Legends of the Fall) novellas are each striking in their own ways, rich and satisfying. (Jan.)
Praise for The River Swimmer The River Swimmer . . . contains some of the best writing of his career. Both novellas burn brightly with what he calls, at one point, ‘unmitigated cupidity,’ not for money or possessions but for life and experience. . . . He is among the most indelible American novelists of the last hundred years . . . Mr. Harrison contains multitudes; like a good rabbit liver pâté, there is a lot of him to spread around. . . . If The River Swimmer is any indication, he remains at the height of his powers.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times The River Swimmer .”—Ron Carlson, The New York Times Book Review The Boston Globe The Washington Post Legends of the Fall . . . . But with the lead piece in this new book, the autumnal novella he calls The Land of Unlikeness ,’ he comes quite close. . . . The new novella is . . . no less intense, as it enriches and enlarges an emotion-charged period in the life of Clive, a divorced Midwestern painter-turned-critic. . . . What does the male version of quality of life really mean? Something like this, something like this. And female readers who don’t give over some time to studying Harrison’s version of it will be as foolish as the men.”—Alan Cheuse, NPRLegends of the Fall 30 years ago, Jim Harrison has produced a steady stream of novellas demonstrating what a writer can do in approximately 100 pages. The trick to a good novella is to give the same richness of story, action and characters as one finds in a full-length novel. At its best, it is a novel shorn of fat, full of story.”—Steve Novak, Minneapolis Star Tribune Tampa Bay Times Kansas City Star The River Swimmer is Harrison at his crusty best.”—Bruce Jacobs, Shelf Awareness (online)Detroit Free Press Kirkus Reviews Publishers Weekly Library Journal
One of America's great literary treasures, Harrison delivers not one but two works: "The Land of Unlikeness," in which a washed-up 60-year-old academic returns to his Michigan home for renewal, and "Water Baby," in which an Upper Peninsula farm boy sees ghostly creatures in the waters of the nearby lake. Magic realism à la Harrison?
Two men—one older, one younger—discover what makes them whole. An involuntary sabbatical sends Clive, a 60-year-old art professor and critic, to his childhood home, where familiar touchstones revive his passion for painting. A violent encounter with a girlfriend's father sends Thad, a high school junior, into Lake Michigan, swimming toward Chicago. There he meets another girl with a domineering father and feels an instinctive pull to return to the water. Traber Burns's gravelly voice and pointed delivery fit well with Clive's skepticism and pretension. However, Burns gives a similar portrayal to the naïve Thad, causing dissonance between the narration and the character. Though these two characters are not always sympathetic, Harrison’s penetrating insights into human behavior mitigate some of the mismatch. A.S. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
FEBRUARY 2013 - AudioFile
Though these two novellas feel slight in comparison with the best of the prolific author's novels, the ways in which they complement and contrast with each other attest to his range. Both The Land of Unlikeness and the title novella return Harrison (The Great Leader , 2011, etc.) to familiar territory, his native Michigan, with protagonists at very different stages of their lives. The autumnal opening novella finds a once-successful painter turned academic returning home to care for his mother, allowing his sister to experience some of the cosmopolitan life beyond Michigan that he has. Neither the author nor his protagonist takes himself overly seriously, though a sense of mortality pervades the story along with the possibility of renewal. "You're not going to live forever, Mister Bigshot," warns the mother, urging her son to reconcile with his daughter, who took sides after his divorce. He reunites with a boyhood love, rediscovers his passion for painting and reaffirms his engagement with a life that he has been watching from the sidelines: "It occurred to him that only purity of intent would save his own sorry soul. If he were to continue to paint he had to do so without the trace of the slumming intellectual toting around his heavy knapsack of ironies. He was well into his third act and further delay would be infamous." By contrast, the title story shows the first act of its protagonist's life reaching climax, as a 17-year-old boy who lives to swim (in rivers) experiences his sexual initiation, and the complications that follow, as he swims his way through a magical, rite-of-passage quest. "[H]umans are ill-prepared for the miraculous," he discovers. "It's too much of a jolt and the human soul is not spacious enough to deal with it." Ultimately, he realizes that "there was a world out there to swim through." Everyday epiphanies from a major author.
