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The Farmer's Daughter: Novellas
In these three stories Harrison writes about a home-schooled fifteen-year-old girl in rural Montana, in another his beloved recurring character Brown Dog escapes from Canada on the tour bus of an Indian rock band, and finally, he tells about a retired werewolf prone to outbursts of violence under the full moon.
321 pages, Kindle Edition
First published December 15, 2009
74 people are currently reading
879 people want to read
About the author
Jim Harrison
188 books1,506 followersJim Harrison was born in Grayling, Michigan, to Winfield Sprague Harrison, a county agricultural agent, and Norma Olivia (Wahlgren) Harrison, both avid readers. He married Linda King in 1959 with whom he has two daughters.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969-70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007).
Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
His awards include National Academy of Arts grants (1967, 68, 69), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1969-70), the Spirit of the West Award from the Mountain & Plains Booksellers Association, and election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007).
Much of Harrison's writing depicts sparsely populated regions of North America with many stories set in places such as Nebraska's Sand Hills, Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Montana's mountains, and along the Arizona-Mexico border.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 171 reviews
September 21, 2013
I tend to always have a book with me. And not just where expected like a beach or an airplane, but also at solo restaurant breakfasts and places where authority makes us common folk wait, like doctor's offices, courtrooms and automobile service shops. What I've never understood though is how anyone could come upon me in rapt, public attention to my book and interpret that as an invitation to chat. Such encounters typically end with my new best friend leaving me with a literary recommendation. But I don't want to read John Grisham, nor do I care what five people await me in heaven.
On a few occasions, however, the intruder has said, 'Jim Harrison', a mystic look spreading across the face. I had, of course, read the cultish reviews and even tried an earlier work of Harrison's a couple of decades ago. Yet I wondered at the faraway look. It was genuine and passionate. This was not someone who thought Bill O'Reilly spends hours in scholarly research and writes his own books. So, The Farmer's Daughter beckoned at a used book store. I paused because of the proliferation of Daughter books, but at least there wasn't an Alchemist or Apprentice in the title.
Now, I understand.
The Farmer's Daughter is three novellas, apparently a literary form the author fancies. They're not for everyone. Let's just say the men are often drunk and constantly tumescent. Sex happens, without a lot of foreplay. Like watching the macaques at the zoo. That doesn't mean that it isn't profound though:
When he was eleven there was a neighbor girl who would show you her butt for a nickel but if you tried to touch it she'd smack the shit out of you. He'd heard that now she was a school principal up in Houghton.
You either get that, or you don't.
Nothing really made me wince but then I grew up in such language. Indeed, this felt like putting on the most familiar soft flannel shirt.
And it's full of truths, like:
Grandpa had a theory that you should never go after a female with a bad father because they're always pissed off. I've done no research on that theory but it sounds like it must be true.
Jim Harrison is a wonderful storyteller. It's funny, yes, and it's been called 'masculine', whatever the hell that is. But there was lump in your throat heartbreak and profundity and I learned a lot of things like there are people suffering from anhedonia who can't experience pleasure, and that Antonio Machado was very wise when he wrote:
Look in your mirror for the other one,
the one who accompanies you.
I could not put this down. (Advice, you know, for anyone who might be overdosing on Proust). Jim Harrison is an old man now, but he has a lengthy oeuvre, for which I am very happy.
On a few occasions, however, the intruder has said, 'Jim Harrison', a mystic look spreading across the face. I had, of course, read the cultish reviews and even tried an earlier work of Harrison's a couple of decades ago. Yet I wondered at the faraway look. It was genuine and passionate. This was not someone who thought Bill O'Reilly spends hours in scholarly research and writes his own books. So, The Farmer's Daughter beckoned at a used book store. I paused because of the proliferation of Daughter books, but at least there wasn't an Alchemist or Apprentice in the title.
Now, I understand.
The Farmer's Daughter is three novellas, apparently a literary form the author fancies. They're not for everyone. Let's just say the men are often drunk and constantly tumescent. Sex happens, without a lot of foreplay. Like watching the macaques at the zoo. That doesn't mean that it isn't profound though:
When he was eleven there was a neighbor girl who would show you her butt for a nickel but if you tried to touch it she'd smack the shit out of you. He'd heard that now she was a school principal up in Houghton.
You either get that, or you don't.
Nothing really made me wince but then I grew up in such language. Indeed, this felt like putting on the most familiar soft flannel shirt.
And it's full of truths, like:
Grandpa had a theory that you should never go after a female with a bad father because they're always pissed off. I've done no research on that theory but it sounds like it must be true.
Jim Harrison is a wonderful storyteller. It's funny, yes, and it's been called 'masculine', whatever the hell that is. But there was lump in your throat heartbreak and profundity and I learned a lot of things like there are people suffering from anhedonia who can't experience pleasure, and that Antonio Machado was very wise when he wrote:
Look in your mirror for the other one,
the one who accompanies you.
I could not put this down. (Advice, you know, for anyone who might be overdosing on Proust). Jim Harrison is an old man now, but he has a lengthy oeuvre, for which I am very happy.
January 30, 2010
Jim Harrison is now officially my favorite contemporary writer. His latest, The Farmers Daughter includes three brilliant novellas. In trying to describe Harrison I can't beat a line I read in an interview. They called him a Falstaffian figure; part wild man, part cultivated literary lion. In the first story, The Farmers Daughter, an intelligent isolated homeschooled girl raised on a ranch in Montana deals with her need for revenge after a rape. I was impressed how Harrison captures the voice of this female character with such honesty and respect. The second Brown Dog Redux brings back a character Harrison has used in other novellas, Brown Dog. He is an Anishinabe Indian, happily sexual and unimpressed with society, now trying to care for his adopted daughter. The third, The Games of Night is the ever popular werewolf theme told with new intelligence and creativity. All three characters are loners, living on the fringe while carefully observing the human landscape. Thank god there are still wild wordsmiths like Harrison to bring life to them.
April 14, 2022
When you lifted the lid a bit the natural world, including ourselves, offered as much darkness in human terms as light.
The Farmer's Daughter is comprised of three novellas, all treading towards the slightly creepy (I should qualify that term: quasi-sexual relations between an elderly man and a teen, an inappropriate straight male and a lesbian and well a lycanthrope and every woman he approaches). Each novella is perhaps a variation on a theme, a musing upon the value of reflection. Errant quotes from Lorca, Machado and strange enough Heidegger. There are scattered lines on longing and the stillness of Nature. I fear all of this wasn't by design but was the best available under the circumstances.
The Farmer's Daughter is comprised of three novellas, all treading towards the slightly creepy (I should qualify that term: quasi-sexual relations between an elderly man and a teen, an inappropriate straight male and a lesbian and well a lycanthrope and every woman he approaches). Each novella is perhaps a variation on a theme, a musing upon the value of reflection. Errant quotes from Lorca, Machado and strange enough Heidegger. There are scattered lines on longing and the stillness of Nature. I fear all of this wasn't by design but was the best available under the circumstances.
Read
January 23, 2010Jim Harrison is one of those love-'em or hate-'em kind of writers, the love or hate coalescing around a question that's followed him from the get-go: is he "too macho?"
"Macho" is a label he vehemently rejects, pointing out that in Mexico, this word is reserved for men who express their dominance through gratuitous violence. Fine; the question is, then, is he too masculine?
What are we to make of the extraordinary, unearned sexual success of his male protagonists? Or of the precocious, preternatural sexuality of his adolscents? Are his female protagonists (Dalva, Julip, etc.) manifestations of his ideal female in their forthright sexuality? Indeed, what's up with all this sex? Is it just male wish fulfilment? (Or, recalling that it is fiction, male wishfulness?)
Or do Dalva and Julip usurp male prerogatives -- are they women who actually threaten male dominance? Is the sexuality of his male protagonists a boon, or an affliction? Is Harrison making some kind of point here that some of his critics continually miss?
In the third novella of his latest collection, "The Games of Night," his narrator muses on that point: "... at odd moments we wonder who we truly are beneath the layers of paint the culture has applied to us." Harrison has always been after the truth beneath that veneer, the animal within. Perhaps it's because I read it concurrently with Conversations with Jim Harrison (University of Mississippi Press, 2002), in which Harrison continually answers interviewers on this point -- encouraging me to read with more intelligence than my usual lunkish efforts -- but it seems he's never found that animal so convincingly as in The Farmer's Daughter.
Not that he's universally successful. The title novella, told from the viewpoint of an adolescent girl, is the weakest of the three. Harrison never seems to fully inhabit her consciousness and consequently she doesn't come to life as richly or as fully as his other protagonists. She is too precocious (which Harrison hangs a lampshade on by continually having people say she's old beyond her years), and too sexually open to be a believable teenager. While she's undoubtedly a strong female character (in the same vein as Dalva and Julip), she never quite feels fully realized.
Harrison is far more successful in his reprise of his long-running character, Brown Dog. "Brown Dog Redux" finds BD on the lam, in Toronto, with his daughter Berry, who is rendered mute by fetal alcohol syndrome, and the story follows his return home to Michigan. It seems here that Harrison is putting BD to bed; if so, it's a fine, and hilarious, exit.
Brown Dog ambles through life in a perpetual state of lazy, masculine befuddlement. He desires women without irony, says his counsellor (and sole true love), Gretchen, and this is why they sleep with him; never has Harrison stated so bluntly what all this sex is about. But BD is not exactly marriage material, and consequently he is abandoned, rejected, and permanently perplexed. He is, as his name implies, just like a big, dopey puppy, and Harrison gets at this idea much more successfully here than he did with Cliff, in his recent novel The English Major, whose befuddled canine goofiness was clearest when waitresses patted him affectionately on the head.
This is Harrison's vision of masculinity: when we aren't puppies, we're dogs. And bearing in mind that dogs have teeth, we can also be wolves. The third novella of this collection, "The Games of Night," takes up lycanthropy, one of Harrison's old motifs. Harrison said of his unsuccessful, Hollywood-bastardized screenplay, Wolf (not related to his novel of the same title) that he wished he'd done it as a novella first, so he would have had control of it, and "The Games of Night" seems to be a belated attempt to correct that error.
Harrison's protagonist is bitten in the neck by a wolf cub at the age of 12, which results in a blood disorder with symptoms only too familiar to Harrison fans: outrageous appetites for food and sex, and a violent disposition which overcomes his better nature, to his later regret. Those appetites wax and wane with the moon, on a monthly cycle; he is not precisely a werewolf, but he is half wolf, or half dog. That this coincides with puberty is hardly coincidental, and interestingly, the narrator continually euphemizes this condition with such expressions as "my monthly affliction," recalling certain menstrual euphemisms. This is, Harrison asserts, the male condition.
Although the title novella is weaker than the other two, The Farmer's Daughter is possibly Harrison's best book, and the clearest expression of his concerns, in years.
"Macho" is a label he vehemently rejects, pointing out that in Mexico, this word is reserved for men who express their dominance through gratuitous violence. Fine; the question is, then, is he too masculine?
What are we to make of the extraordinary, unearned sexual success of his male protagonists? Or of the precocious, preternatural sexuality of his adolscents? Are his female protagonists (Dalva, Julip, etc.) manifestations of his ideal female in their forthright sexuality? Indeed, what's up with all this sex? Is it just male wish fulfilment? (Or, recalling that it is fiction, male wishfulness?)
Or do Dalva and Julip usurp male prerogatives -- are they women who actually threaten male dominance? Is the sexuality of his male protagonists a boon, or an affliction? Is Harrison making some kind of point here that some of his critics continually miss?
In the third novella of his latest collection, "The Games of Night," his narrator muses on that point: "... at odd moments we wonder who we truly are beneath the layers of paint the culture has applied to us." Harrison has always been after the truth beneath that veneer, the animal within. Perhaps it's because I read it concurrently with Conversations with Jim Harrison (University of Mississippi Press, 2002), in which Harrison continually answers interviewers on this point -- encouraging me to read with more intelligence than my usual lunkish efforts -- but it seems he's never found that animal so convincingly as in The Farmer's Daughter.
Not that he's universally successful. The title novella, told from the viewpoint of an adolescent girl, is the weakest of the three. Harrison never seems to fully inhabit her consciousness and consequently she doesn't come to life as richly or as fully as his other protagonists. She is too precocious (which Harrison hangs a lampshade on by continually having people say she's old beyond her years), and too sexually open to be a believable teenager. While she's undoubtedly a strong female character (in the same vein as Dalva and Julip), she never quite feels fully realized.
Harrison is far more successful in his reprise of his long-running character, Brown Dog. "Brown Dog Redux" finds BD on the lam, in Toronto, with his daughter Berry, who is rendered mute by fetal alcohol syndrome, and the story follows his return home to Michigan. It seems here that Harrison is putting BD to bed; if so, it's a fine, and hilarious, exit.
Brown Dog ambles through life in a perpetual state of lazy, masculine befuddlement. He desires women without irony, says his counsellor (and sole true love), Gretchen, and this is why they sleep with him; never has Harrison stated so bluntly what all this sex is about. But BD is not exactly marriage material, and consequently he is abandoned, rejected, and permanently perplexed. He is, as his name implies, just like a big, dopey puppy, and Harrison gets at this idea much more successfully here than he did with Cliff, in his recent novel The English Major, whose befuddled canine goofiness was clearest when waitresses patted him affectionately on the head.
This is Harrison's vision of masculinity: when we aren't puppies, we're dogs. And bearing in mind that dogs have teeth, we can also be wolves. The third novella of this collection, "The Games of Night," takes up lycanthropy, one of Harrison's old motifs. Harrison said of his unsuccessful, Hollywood-bastardized screenplay, Wolf (not related to his novel of the same title) that he wished he'd done it as a novella first, so he would have had control of it, and "The Games of Night" seems to be a belated attempt to correct that error.
Harrison's protagonist is bitten in the neck by a wolf cub at the age of 12, which results in a blood disorder with symptoms only too familiar to Harrison fans: outrageous appetites for food and sex, and a violent disposition which overcomes his better nature, to his later regret. Those appetites wax and wane with the moon, on a monthly cycle; he is not precisely a werewolf, but he is half wolf, or half dog. That this coincides with puberty is hardly coincidental, and interestingly, the narrator continually euphemizes this condition with such expressions as "my monthly affliction," recalling certain menstrual euphemisms. This is, Harrison asserts, the male condition.
Although the title novella is weaker than the other two, The Farmer's Daughter is possibly Harrison's best book, and the clearest expression of his concerns, in years.
October 3, 2010
I would give this 3.5 stars if a half star were available. I have always liked Jim Harrison. And I've always felt slightly guilty about that. Let's face it, he's a muscular writer whose male characters are always filled with lots and lots of whiskey and ready for lots and lots of sex, while his best female characters, like the "the farmer's daughter" can shoot and dress down a deer in one paragraph and discuss Stendhal in the next. It's a little embarrassing to like this kind of thing in a post-feminist age, but I am from the West, where such stereotypes proliferate, so what can I say? This book is made up of three novellas, a form at which Harrison excels. The first, "The Farmer's Daughter," is the weakest of the three in my judgment. It concerns a girl who moves to Montana at a young age and grows up as a tough hunter, a great cook of elk stew, an outstanding classical pianist (prefers Shubert over Schumann), and a connoisseur of great literature (prefers, yes, Stendhal over all others)! She is obsessed with murdering a worthless local who once abused her sexually. In the second novella, "Brown Dog Redux," a half-Lakota struggles to raise a daughter who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. He's a fascinating character who lives entirely in the "now," with, to use Harrison's words, "his inner and outer child . . . pretty much glued together" (p.192). The third novella, and the best, is "The Games of Night." This is a sort of modern werewolf story, in which the main character, who was bitten as a child by a wolf pup, is possessed with dangerous and uncontrollable energy whenever the moon is at its fullest. What makes this character intriguing and a bit humorous is that he becomes almost a parody of the usual Harrison hero: he admires the poetry of Rene Char, speaks of the iconography of the Vezelay cathedral, praises the bistros of Lyon, knows about Willis Barnstone's translations of Chinese poetry but is at the same time about as muscular as muscular can be (i.e., Montana male + wolf = very, very muscular indeed). What always redeems Harrison, though, is his skill at cutting through the bullshit--e.g., "Brenda went for what she called her 'eating disorder' and she had wept hysterically when B.D. had said, 'You're fine, you just eat too much'"(p.129); "He couldn't recall understanding a single lyric of this music except, 'You can't always get what you want' which he viewed as the dominant face of life"(p.138); "Grandpa had a theory that you should never go after a female with a bad father because they're always pissed off" (p.149). I love this sort of stuff. Should I feel guilty?
January 8, 2011
It was so nice to read some of the reviews of this book prior to writing my own; nice and also quite reassuring inasmuch as I am not the only one who has become a slavish fan of Jim Harrison's since the first book of his I read: "Legends of the Fall" (before the movie was made, rest assured!).
Here he is, so macho as to be totally incorrect in a post-modern feminist construct, so ribald that you have to laugh in spite of yourself, so incredibly gifted that he can pen female characters in an utterly convincing way (even though those women ride, hunt and plot homicide as naturally as Mme Bovary plotted elopement!).
Jim Harrison is equally comfortable writing essays about food, poetry, full-length novels or, as in this case, novellas. He seems to write totally effortlessly, creating rich plots that showcase the drama of simple daily life and penning characters that are eminently credible even in the case of an altogether likely and unlikely werewolf. All this happens against a backdrop he is able to render flawlessly whether it is a ranch in Montana, a small Italian village, a water tank in a Louisiana cow pasture or a busload of American Indian rock musicians drifting from Toronto to the Dakotas.
These novellas are like a three voice harmony, reminding the reader, each in its own octave, each with its own perfect pitch, that things and people are rarely what they seem, that only our prejudices are one-dimensional and that good stories are all in the telling.
Here he is, so macho as to be totally incorrect in a post-modern feminist construct, so ribald that you have to laugh in spite of yourself, so incredibly gifted that he can pen female characters in an utterly convincing way (even though those women ride, hunt and plot homicide as naturally as Mme Bovary plotted elopement!).
Jim Harrison is equally comfortable writing essays about food, poetry, full-length novels or, as in this case, novellas. He seems to write totally effortlessly, creating rich plots that showcase the drama of simple daily life and penning characters that are eminently credible even in the case of an altogether likely and unlikely werewolf. All this happens against a backdrop he is able to render flawlessly whether it is a ranch in Montana, a small Italian village, a water tank in a Louisiana cow pasture or a busload of American Indian rock musicians drifting from Toronto to the Dakotas.
These novellas are like a three voice harmony, reminding the reader, each in its own octave, each with its own perfect pitch, that things and people are rarely what they seem, that only our prejudices are one-dimensional and that good stories are all in the telling.
January 6, 2013
I haven't read anything by Jim Harrison that I didn't like; so before I continue, it is only fair for me to say that I might not be the most objective critic of his writing. This particular collection includes yet another tale of Brown Dog who has returned from Harrison's earlier body of work. Despite a new setting and supporting cast of characters Brown Dog hasn't changed a bit. Immoral, broke, and abstractly unconcerned about his own situation, Brown Dog still makes for yet another great read.
This also includes Games of the Night which is one of my all-time favorite Harrison stories. This time Harrison provides us with the tale of a werewolf who is the son of struggling and failed academics. Despite the intriguing and mythical notion of a lycanthrope, Harrison still manages to create a very multidimensional character whose situation is otherwise entirely plausible.
Very much worth the read!
This also includes Games of the Night which is one of my all-time favorite Harrison stories. This time Harrison provides us with the tale of a werewolf who is the son of struggling and failed academics. Despite the intriguing and mythical notion of a lycanthrope, Harrison still manages to create a very multidimensional character whose situation is otherwise entirely plausible.
Very much worth the read!
April 26, 2010
I was thrilled and excitedly telling my husband that Jim Harrison is an old guy but he writes young girls pretty well...until Sarah moves and then has a sweet (but really creepy in the end) relationship with a man sixty years older than her. And after finishing the first story, I started the second, realized the main character was little more than a walking erection, and moved on to the last one, with another insatiable male. Wtf. Also, the use of the terms "weenie" and "wanger" really disgusted me. It is a penis. Though I wasn't thrilled that a preschooler I know used the term "dangle" forever, thanks to his father, it was understandable that a parent might be embarrassed and feel that they need a different name for body parts, though I personally don't see the reason for it. I didn't understand an adult using either term.
April 6, 2011
This was on my to-read list for so long that when I sat down to read it I had forgotten it was three novellas. Which was disappointing when I became invested in the first story and its characters and then it ended--and was even more disappointing when I found the other two stories offputting. In both of the latter cases the protagonists were sex-obsessed men with minor stories circling around them. Um...great.
November 5, 2009
It had been a while since I'd read a Harrison story. I loved the title story and thought the characters read true. The Farmer's Daughter is a young girl,15, who lives in Montana, and is finding her way. She definitely underrates herself yet has the confidence to be true to herself in so many ways. She's kind enough to treat her best friend, a man in his seventies, to glimpses of her own scantily clad self from time to time. Her first lover, though, will be a man only 20 years her senior once she turns a legal 16. After all, they share a love of music, music that becomes their language. More to this story, of course, as in any Harrison. Once I finished it, I started over right away and I was surprised that the beginning wasn't as long in pages as I had just remembered. In just a few words, Harrison had set the scene so completely.
2nd story is Brown Dog in Toronto with a step daughter damaged by fetal alcohol syndrome. The 3rd story was a werewolf story, a recurring theme for Harrison.
2nd story is Brown Dog in Toronto with a step daughter damaged by fetal alcohol syndrome. The 3rd story was a werewolf story, a recurring theme for Harrison.
October 16, 2022
“When you lifted the lid a bit the natural world, including ourselves, offered as much darkness in human terms as light. To look at it with any clarity you certainly had to attempt to look at it through the perceptions of a million-plus other species.”
September 29, 2022
-ranch girl
-BD story
-werewolf
Frankly the most impressive part was the original take on werewolves. One of JHs better short story collections.
-BD story
-werewolf
Frankly the most impressive part was the original take on werewolves. One of JHs better short story collections.
November 7, 2011
The Farmer’s Daughter Review
A teenage girl, a luckless half-Indian, and a boy turned werewolf. In Jim Harrison’s The Farmer’s Daughter, it’s remarkable to see how three completely different stories can coincide together in one novel, and how each of these character’s stories has a common thread that binds them together in a very unconventional, but ironic way.
The Farmer’s Daughter was the first story about a teenager named Sarah, who is forced, in the rough country of Montana, quickly into womanhood. Dealt with an aloof father and abandoned by her over-protective “religious” mother, Sarah has this newfound freedom to discover the world, and realizes her strength due to both the beauty and cruelty she is faced with. Harrison really delves into the female perspective, and cleverly depicts the conflict Sarah has with herself when she’s raped, and is battling her loss of innocence and whether or not to kill the boy that destroyed her. Behind all the manly rhetoric about hunting, alcohol, and rough cowboys, Harrison masters the complexities of a young girl. Though at times I feel like Sarah’s inner-monologues are a bit too old for her, and Harrison, being a man, sometimes forgets that the character is in fact a girl, the character development is great, and I admire the strong person the character comes out to be among her unfortunate impediments.
In Brown Dog Redux, the character Brown Dog is trying to sneak his daughter illegally into Canada from the U.S in order to prevent her from being forced into living in a special home for children with disabilities. A very interesting concept, I read with anticipation for something to happen, but the story is slow-moving, and through most of it, I was very put off by the sexually crazed character, and the explicit details of his encounters with a variety of women. I have to admit that I’m sure it’s an honest portrayal of a man’s mind, but the character’s preoccupations actually derails from the actual plot of getting his daughter Berry safe, and though, like Sarah, Dog has to overcome his own demons, I don’t see his character develop in this story at all.
In Games of the Night, Harrison is able to create fiction into reality very well. It’s about a boy who turns into a werewolf after being bitten in the forest by a dog. Harrison tells the story as if this can really happen, and the first-person narrative gives a more personal tone.
Even though these characters are faced with different obstacles, they share this loneliness as outsiders, each struggling to find their place in the world, and Harrison ties this fact together wonderfully with a musical allusion that pops up in each story, “The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me.” Harrison is able to create real, memorable characters with their unique voices, and you’ll be rooting for these underdogs and their strife for resolution. Though, Harrison fails in creating a substantial plot for the Brown Dog Redux piece; the chain of events muddled by his lust for numerous women, and though he does have conflict in the story, I feel like it falls short compared to the other two stories. In short, the novel and its characters are very authentic and real, and though there are glitches here and there, it’s a well-written piece, and showcases three genuinely-rich stories that, together, make a great story.
Second Book Review: The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn
A teenage girl, a luckless half-Indian, and a boy turned werewolf. In Jim Harrison’s The Farmer’s Daughter, it’s remarkable to see how three completely different stories can coincide together in one novel, and how each of these character’s stories has a common thread that binds them together in a very unconventional, but ironic way.
The Farmer’s Daughter was the first story about a teenager named Sarah, who is forced, in the rough country of Montana, quickly into womanhood. Dealt with an aloof father and abandoned by her over-protective “religious” mother, Sarah has this newfound freedom to discover the world, and realizes her strength due to both the beauty and cruelty she is faced with. Harrison really delves into the female perspective, and cleverly depicts the conflict Sarah has with herself when she’s raped, and is battling her loss of innocence and whether or not to kill the boy that destroyed her. Behind all the manly rhetoric about hunting, alcohol, and rough cowboys, Harrison masters the complexities of a young girl. Though at times I feel like Sarah’s inner-monologues are a bit too old for her, and Harrison, being a man, sometimes forgets that the character is in fact a girl, the character development is great, and I admire the strong person the character comes out to be among her unfortunate impediments.
In Brown Dog Redux, the character Brown Dog is trying to sneak his daughter illegally into Canada from the U.S in order to prevent her from being forced into living in a special home for children with disabilities. A very interesting concept, I read with anticipation for something to happen, but the story is slow-moving, and through most of it, I was very put off by the sexually crazed character, and the explicit details of his encounters with a variety of women. I have to admit that I’m sure it’s an honest portrayal of a man’s mind, but the character’s preoccupations actually derails from the actual plot of getting his daughter Berry safe, and though, like Sarah, Dog has to overcome his own demons, I don’t see his character develop in this story at all.
In Games of the Night, Harrison is able to create fiction into reality very well. It’s about a boy who turns into a werewolf after being bitten in the forest by a dog. Harrison tells the story as if this can really happen, and the first-person narrative gives a more personal tone.
Even though these characters are faced with different obstacles, they share this loneliness as outsiders, each struggling to find their place in the world, and Harrison ties this fact together wonderfully with a musical allusion that pops up in each story, “The Last Word in Lonesome Is Me.” Harrison is able to create real, memorable characters with their unique voices, and you’ll be rooting for these underdogs and their strife for resolution. Though, Harrison fails in creating a substantial plot for the Brown Dog Redux piece; the chain of events muddled by his lust for numerous women, and though he does have conflict in the story, I feel like it falls short compared to the other two stories. In short, the novel and its characters are very authentic and real, and though there are glitches here and there, it’s a well-written piece, and showcases three genuinely-rich stories that, together, make a great story.
Second Book Review: The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn
December 25, 2009
It's hard to imagine, and extremely gratifying, to watch Jim Harrison get better with every effort. "The Farmer's Daughter," is his most recent contribution and it's another collection of novellas. It's important to pause, for a second, and realize that Harrison is one of the few authers who writes in this format today, and he is a clear master of it.
The first story, The Farmer's Daughter, presents the tale of a very strong young woman, Sarah, who my psychiatric colleagues would say has lived a deprived and socially isolated life. In Harrison's hands, however, she's lived a life close to the natural world and has, therefore, been blessed in many ways. However, life has been hard. Abandoned by her religious fanatic mother, she spends her time playing piano and loving and being loved by a much older man, Tim, who lives near her father's property (this relationship, and another between a 14 year old boy and an older woman later in the book, the reviewer for the New York Times termed, "illegal," and a product of a "male phantasy." One wonders on which planet she lives. Maybe, if she talked to people outside the Ivory Tower or beyond the reach of NOW, she might discover that SHE has a phantasy about male/female sexuality she ought to look into). Anyway, at some point Sarah is violated by a young cowboy type and sets off on a project of revenge that is riveting. Along the way, she continues to play the piano ("her speech, her only viable conversation with the world") and read voraciously, everyone from Jane Austin to Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro, and Wallace Stevens. It's amazing how accurately and believable Harrison, at seventy, can bring to the page the life of a 15 year old girl. This is masterful writing.
The next story, "Brown Dog Redux," is, I believe, the fifth novella Harrison has devoted to his character, Brown Dog, a half-breed semi wild man who doesn't have a social security number or a drivers license and whose favorite temperature and safe driving speed are the same: 49. This installment has Brown Dog making his reentery into the United States after having smuggled his step-daughter, Berry, who is mentally challenged due to fetal alcohol syndrome, into Canada. He's smuggled Berry up to Canada because Michigan social services wanted to warehous her in a Michigan Institution. Berry communicates best with birds and other animals and Brown Dog knew her life would end in some impersonal institution. Now, however, he is bringing her back to the States. Along the way, Brown Dog has some hillarious, but completely believable, sexual experiences that are a joy to witness and read.
Finally, Harrison ends with, "The Games of Night." This time Harrison writes about the life of a 14 year old boy who, at one point, is attacked by hummingbirds and then bitten by a wolf cub and becomes a werewolf. It's amazing how Harrison eases the reader into this improbable circumstance. All along the way we are treated to some of the most poetic prose in the modern canon. As the main character of "The Games of Night," witnesses his transformation into pure animal nature we read, "Of course at odd moments we wonder who we truly are beneath the layers of paint the culture has applied to us." It is those layers that Harrison explores and eventually peels off in these three expertly crafted novellas.
I recommend this book without reservation.
The first story, The Farmer's Daughter, presents the tale of a very strong young woman, Sarah, who my psychiatric colleagues would say has lived a deprived and socially isolated life. In Harrison's hands, however, she's lived a life close to the natural world and has, therefore, been blessed in many ways. However, life has been hard. Abandoned by her religious fanatic mother, she spends her time playing piano and loving and being loved by a much older man, Tim, who lives near her father's property (this relationship, and another between a 14 year old boy and an older woman later in the book, the reviewer for the New York Times termed, "illegal," and a product of a "male phantasy." One wonders on which planet she lives. Maybe, if she talked to people outside the Ivory Tower or beyond the reach of NOW, she might discover that SHE has a phantasy about male/female sexuality she ought to look into). Anyway, at some point Sarah is violated by a young cowboy type and sets off on a project of revenge that is riveting. Along the way, she continues to play the piano ("her speech, her only viable conversation with the world") and read voraciously, everyone from Jane Austin to Margaret Atwood and Alice Munro, and Wallace Stevens. It's amazing how accurately and believable Harrison, at seventy, can bring to the page the life of a 15 year old girl. This is masterful writing.
The next story, "Brown Dog Redux," is, I believe, the fifth novella Harrison has devoted to his character, Brown Dog, a half-breed semi wild man who doesn't have a social security number or a drivers license and whose favorite temperature and safe driving speed are the same: 49. This installment has Brown Dog making his reentery into the United States after having smuggled his step-daughter, Berry, who is mentally challenged due to fetal alcohol syndrome, into Canada. He's smuggled Berry up to Canada because Michigan social services wanted to warehous her in a Michigan Institution. Berry communicates best with birds and other animals and Brown Dog knew her life would end in some impersonal institution. Now, however, he is bringing her back to the States. Along the way, Brown Dog has some hillarious, but completely believable, sexual experiences that are a joy to witness and read.
Finally, Harrison ends with, "The Games of Night." This time Harrison writes about the life of a 14 year old boy who, at one point, is attacked by hummingbirds and then bitten by a wolf cub and becomes a werewolf. It's amazing how Harrison eases the reader into this improbable circumstance. All along the way we are treated to some of the most poetic prose in the modern canon. As the main character of "The Games of Night," witnesses his transformation into pure animal nature we read, "Of course at odd moments we wonder who we truly are beneath the layers of paint the culture has applied to us." It is those layers that Harrison explores and eventually peels off in these three expertly crafted novellas.
I recommend this book without reservation.
September 25, 2011
there are three stories inside, the farmer's daughter, brown dog redux, and the games of night.
all 3 were a joy to read. someone on the cover says, 'ribald, vigorous, and intelligent'.....i'd add at times vulgar, brutally honest, and simple. but it's all relative, isn't it? subjective? it was funny, reading about towns i'm familiar with, home to me is the upper peninsula...and yeah, sue me, but this is only the second harrison i've read, the other being the english major, another good yarn.
travel.
all three stories move from place to place, one not as much as the other two...or wait...they all move from place to place. the first two, somewhat of an omniscient narrator (i'm a carpenter though so take it all w/a grain of salt) and the 3rd, an eye-narrator name of samuel.
heh! samuel, bitten by a wolf cub....bit of an accident...and possibly some carnivorous hummingbirds...a twist on the werewolf story.
the first, the farmer's daughter has a gratifying scene toward the end, all that smoke in the sky and another running for cover. heh!
and the middle one...brown dog redux...this one had some detail from others...dust jacket cover or whatever, and apparently brown dog is a character in some other stuff from harrison.
i'll be looking for some more harrison to read....
onward and upward
all 3 were a joy to read. someone on the cover says, 'ribald, vigorous, and intelligent'.....i'd add at times vulgar, brutally honest, and simple. but it's all relative, isn't it? subjective? it was funny, reading about towns i'm familiar with, home to me is the upper peninsula...and yeah, sue me, but this is only the second harrison i've read, the other being the english major, another good yarn.
travel.
all three stories move from place to place, one not as much as the other two...or wait...they all move from place to place. the first two, somewhat of an omniscient narrator (i'm a carpenter though so take it all w/a grain of salt) and the 3rd, an eye-narrator name of samuel.
heh! samuel, bitten by a wolf cub....bit of an accident...and possibly some carnivorous hummingbirds...a twist on the werewolf story.
the first, the farmer's daughter has a gratifying scene toward the end, all that smoke in the sky and another running for cover. heh!
and the middle one...brown dog redux...this one had some detail from others...dust jacket cover or whatever, and apparently brown dog is a character in some other stuff from harrison.
i'll be looking for some more harrison to read....
onward and upward
March 7, 2011
This is something I would have never picked out for myself (my mother in law kindly passed it along) but despite the wildnerness-hunting-fishing background in the novellas I found the writing haunting and beautiful. The characters were complex and interesting, and I found myself sympathizing with them even as they were hunting deer. Out of the three, I liked the first best, by far. (Probably b/c it was the only one narrated by a girl, and she liked to hide in the barn reading Willa Cather and other novels her evangelical mother didn't approve of.)
Some common elements through all three novels: he mentions Patsy Cline's song "The Last Word In Lonesome is Me" in every piece. Also describes girls who have been molested at a young age as having been "tinkered" with. And there was at least one parental figure (but some of the stories had more than one) described as a "nitwit".
Some common elements through all three novels: he mentions Patsy Cline's song "The Last Word In Lonesome is Me" in every piece. Also describes girls who have been molested at a young age as having been "tinkered" with. And there was at least one parental figure (but some of the stories had more than one) described as a "nitwit".
June 22, 2011
Man, do I love this guy. This is one of Harrison's best collections, I'd say. All three novellas nail it, with that signature ease that makes reading Harrison so reflective and so enriching. Aside from a strange (and I'd say forced) repeated mention of Patsy Cline's "The Last Word in Lonesome is Me" and the phrase "braless titty" in all three stories, this is a flawless collection. All three are completely engaging while maintaining that wandering quality; all three just sort of end unceremoniously, as if Harrison got to the end of that last sentence and said, "Well, I'd say that about does it."
I can't believe he pulled off a werewolf story so convincingly and realistically. I may have to read "Wolf" now though the movie was awful. Is this collection as good as "The Beast God Forgot to Invent"? I dunno. Perhaps not. Either way it's brilliant.
I can't believe he pulled off a werewolf story so convincingly and realistically. I may have to read "Wolf" now though the movie was awful. Is this collection as good as "The Beast God Forgot to Invent"? I dunno. Perhaps not. Either way it's brilliant.
March 5, 2010
Few authors master the art of the Novella with the innate skill and ingenuity of Jim Harrison!
Yes... he is macho!...testosterone driven, dark and lusty...but writes with such clarity...it is shiveringly stunning!
He at once repels and then lures the reader back with jolting language and lucid descriptions.
Reading Harrison is like a jeopardous journey...he takes the reader to places unknown, but that feel uncomfortably and vaguely familiar.
The 'animal within' human nature is prodded out and laid bare with no apology for social conventions.
Hate him or love him...this man is truly a master story-teller!
THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER (3 very different novellas) is well worth the journey!
Yes... he is macho!...testosterone driven, dark and lusty...but writes with such clarity...it is shiveringly stunning!
He at once repels and then lures the reader back with jolting language and lucid descriptions.
Reading Harrison is like a jeopardous journey...he takes the reader to places unknown, but that feel uncomfortably and vaguely familiar.
The 'animal within' human nature is prodded out and laid bare with no apology for social conventions.
Hate him or love him...this man is truly a master story-teller!
THE FARMER'S DAUGHTER (3 very different novellas) is well worth the journey!
March 22, 2011
I love Jim Harrison's writing; booze, sex, & the people in small towns - these short stories made for perfect vacation reading. The girls in the first story could have been raised in my small hometown and the Indian in the second could have been my prom date! The last story in particular had me laughing out loud and reading lines to my daughter. Harrison writes a believable story about a young kid that is bitten by a hummingbird, then a wolf pup and develops some type of blood disorder which causes him to become very strong, develop a ferocious appetite and have 'seizures' about two days a month when there is a full moon.
January 23, 2010
The title novella of this collection is definitely the best of the three. It's an intriguing character study of a young girl coming of age. "Brown Dog Redux" was less interesting in general, as I wasn't a huge fan of B.D. the first time round. But having spent not a little time in the U.P., I got a kick out of recognizing specific locations, some of which I visited as recently this past summer. "The Games of the Night" I would love to see expanded to a full novel. Lot of potential there.
Overall, not his best book, but it's still vintage Harrison.
Overall, not his best book, but it's still vintage Harrison.
March 26, 2013
I then moved on to this book of three novellas, which also entranced me. The title piece is about a resourceful young woman who is brutalized and takes revenge; "Brown Dog Redux" is another story about BD, in which he becomes satisfied with a new home for his stepdaughter; and The Games of Night, a credible tale about a werewolf. There's nobody like Harrison for giving you the feeling of everyday life, and of living it fully. Sometimes I think I'd be happy reading nothing but his books for the rest of my life.
November 29, 2010
There are 3 different, unconnected novellas in this. Farmer's daughter is the first and what caught my eye (as a farmer's daughter). I connected with this story and appreciated it. The other 2 stories had male central characters with one being an alcoholic Native American and the other a male with werewolf tendencies. They share a belief that connecting with nature is the way to be your true self. Montana is also a locale used in all three stories.
December 1, 2021
Absolutely not. First of all is the most stereotypical “written by a man” book. Is this what men think women think about and are motivated by? The sexual thoughts and descriptions of a young GIRL were as uncomfortable as it gets and the writers weird thing about old men hitting on a 14 year old were very telling. No, no, no thank you. The author is perverted and the book is steeped in toxicity. Hard pass.
October 23, 2010
This book was terrible and I never even finished it. The writing was very choppy and the coming to age point of view of a teenage girl written by a man was not very convincing.
March 13, 2011
Felt as though it were written in a community writing workshop where all the men put sex in their stories and claim it's "erotic".
August 15, 2012
I'm a long time Harrison fan, not just because he's from Michigan. He gets inside people and describes places so well you want to savor the prose like a finely prepared meal.
August 23, 2018
I didn’t even bother to read the other two stories. I wouldn’t even call “Farmers Daughter” a story. Disappointing
April 2, 2021
..The gods are not kind to young people in love…
Not exactly enamored with Mr. Harrison’s later literary output . This collection and the last one I read, The Summer He Didn’t Die, were both disappointing. Just no connecting with the characters or Harrison’s writing. Another Brown Dog novella was included in this collection, but I already read it in the book titled Brown Dog which collects all but one of his Brown Dogs in the series. Trackerwas the only entry worth reading in The Summer He Didn’t Die and of course necessary to the Harrison aficionado. The Games of Night the third novella in this particular collection, was the main impetus for my completing this later literary output.
..Laurel was my first full-blown naked adult woman and I felt nearly ill, quite overwhelmed by what I was seeing. My pecker felt like it was leaking and my face glowed hot as if my whole head was a hummingbird…
I just cannot imagine a young Jim Harrison having any success with his writing in these present days. He is so politically incorrect I would assume he would be banned from most shelves and school libraries. But there is still so much to love in any Harrison literary work of art. Yes, he can become tiring, even a boorish, but for those of us who respect his writing and remain in awe of his mindful words, there is no other writer in his sphere. He remains flying alone in the orbit he has come to own.
..fed on her vulva with my mouth with the moon shining off her bottom. We hadn’t eaten dinner and I was mounting her like a dog when she vomited up some tequila off the edge of the bed…
Typically outrageous entry. Generally the main character in any Harrison fiction is the horny individual who is starved for sex in almost all its forms. In this case, after being bitten by a wolf, he has canine sensibilities toward sex and the eating of flesh.
..I had the advantage of being a permanent stranger on earth which gave me quite a different point of view…
There is really nobody composing today the volume of rough and ready fiction that Harrison has managed to produce. Even his nonfiction contains monumental amounts of gluttony. Overindulgence is his method and the way into his true being. He lived a long time for a man wanting to eat and drink his life to death. Not exactly a healthy method designed to achieve enlightenment, but he may have died with a smile on his face like Jerry Garcia reportedly did.
..I had long been resolved not to let my illness unduly affect my perceptions of reality. I had years ago learned to seek out stillness in wild settings and allow everything to be as it is…
Jim Harrison is spiritually and philosophically a serious man. Though a couple books fail to live up to my expectations does not mean much as he wrote much. Perhaps too much. But some of us are glad he did.
Not exactly enamored with Mr. Harrison’s later literary output . This collection and the last one I read, The Summer He Didn’t Die, were both disappointing. Just no connecting with the characters or Harrison’s writing. Another Brown Dog novella was included in this collection, but I already read it in the book titled Brown Dog which collects all but one of his Brown Dogs in the series. Trackerwas the only entry worth reading in The Summer He Didn’t Die and of course necessary to the Harrison aficionado. The Games of Night the third novella in this particular collection, was the main impetus for my completing this later literary output.
..Laurel was my first full-blown naked adult woman and I felt nearly ill, quite overwhelmed by what I was seeing. My pecker felt like it was leaking and my face glowed hot as if my whole head was a hummingbird…
I just cannot imagine a young Jim Harrison having any success with his writing in these present days. He is so politically incorrect I would assume he would be banned from most shelves and school libraries. But there is still so much to love in any Harrison literary work of art. Yes, he can become tiring, even a boorish, but for those of us who respect his writing and remain in awe of his mindful words, there is no other writer in his sphere. He remains flying alone in the orbit he has come to own.
..fed on her vulva with my mouth with the moon shining off her bottom. We hadn’t eaten dinner and I was mounting her like a dog when she vomited up some tequila off the edge of the bed…
Typically outrageous entry. Generally the main character in any Harrison fiction is the horny individual who is starved for sex in almost all its forms. In this case, after being bitten by a wolf, he has canine sensibilities toward sex and the eating of flesh.
..I had the advantage of being a permanent stranger on earth which gave me quite a different point of view…
There is really nobody composing today the volume of rough and ready fiction that Harrison has managed to produce. Even his nonfiction contains monumental amounts of gluttony. Overindulgence is his method and the way into his true being. He lived a long time for a man wanting to eat and drink his life to death. Not exactly a healthy method designed to achieve enlightenment, but he may have died with a smile on his face like Jerry Garcia reportedly did.
..I had long been resolved not to let my illness unduly affect my perceptions of reality. I had years ago learned to seek out stillness in wild settings and allow everything to be as it is…
Jim Harrison is spiritually and philosophically a serious man. Though a couple books fail to live up to my expectations does not mean much as he wrote much. Perhaps too much. But some of us are glad he did.
January 25, 2018
Je possède une bonne quantité de romans de cet auteur car c'est un des auteurs favoris de mon conjoint. Puisque je n'ai lu que Légendes d'automne que j'avais bien aimé, j'ai choisi La fille du fermier parce qu'il est court et parce que je me suis dit qu'il finirait peut-être par me convaincre de poursuivre ma relation avec cet auteur. Et bien, c'est réussi! Les histoires de cowboys des grands espaces américains ont toujours eu quelque chose de spécial à mes yeux. On y fait ses propres lois à coups de carabine et les limites de chacun sont très peu définies... Sarah ne fait pas exception à ces critères, mais ce n'est qu'une petite partie du roman. La rage qui l'habite ne constitue pas la totalité du personnage. D'abord, c'est une belle jeune femme intelligente qui bien qu'elle rêvasse à plus que ce que la ferme familiale peut lui offrir, elle aime être en pleine nature à dos de cheval et accompagnée de son chien. Les responsabilités ne lui font pas peur et elle excelle à l'école. Née d'une mère très religieuse et d'un père plutôt absent, Sarah est laissée à elle-même pour construire son avenir. Tim, le vieux voisin, contribue à ce développement en dépassant un peu les limites, mais comme Sarah est assez mature pour son âge, on ne lui en veut pas trop... bon, un peu quand même! Il est clair qu'une figure masculine de référence manque à cette jeune adolescente et vous verrez que la fin du roman justifie mon commentaire.
C'est un roman que j'ai dévoré et que j'aurais voulu bien plus long. Tel que le suggère le résumé du livre, je vais attaquer Dalva qui saura certainement assécher pour un temps ma récente soif de lire le grand Jim Harrison!
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blo...
C'est un roman que j'ai dévoré et que j'aurais voulu bien plus long. Tel que le suggère le résumé du livre, je vais attaquer Dalva qui saura certainement assécher pour un temps ma récente soif de lire le grand Jim Harrison!
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blo...
September 9, 2025
C'était incroyable, et sans Alfredo (35 ans) qui tombe amoureux de Sarah (15 ans) et finit avec elle a la fin, j'aurais mis 5 étoiles.
Je comprends pas le move de Harrison sur cette relation. Il transcrit particulièrement bien le harcèlement sexuel subi pas les adolescentes de la part d'hommes beaucoup plus âgés qu'elles et semble le condamner fermement, et pourtant il écrit une fin comme ça, qui est cautionnée par tous les personnages, y compris le père de l'adolescente...
Je comprends pas le move de Harrison sur cette relation. Il transcrit particulièrement bien le harcèlement sexuel subi pas les adolescentes de la part d'hommes beaucoup plus âgés qu'elles et semble le condamner fermement, et pourtant il écrit une fin comme ça, qui est cautionnée par tous les personnages, y compris le père de l'adolescente...
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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