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Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer's Life
Devouring Time
is the definitive biography of Jim Harrison—one of America’s most beloved writers—and a penetrating deep dive into the life of the talent behind
Legends of the Fall
,
Dalva
, and
True North
.
Jim Harrison (1937–2016) was widely considered one of the finest voices of his generation. His twenty-one books of fiction and fourteen books of poetry influenced a generation of writers. Harrison helped to shape the course of contemporary American literature, revitalizing in particular the novella form, of which he was a recognized master.
Harrison’s literary achievements were matched only by the literary persona that he cultivated during a fecund time in American letters and in the company of a remarkable cohort of friends, writers, actors, and artists, including Thomas McGuane, Peter Matthiessen, and Jack Nicholson. Writing for magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Esquire, and Outside in the 1970s, his journalism won him a loyal readership who reveled in his high spirits and prodigious appetites.
For all his notoriety as a writer of prose, however, poetry remained his first and longest-abiding love. He cherished his geographic remoteness from what he called the “dream coasts” of New York City and Los Angeles, preferring to hunt, fish, and drink in the backwoods bars of Michigan, Arizona, and Montana.
Based on more than one hundred original interviews and drawing upon Harrison’s collected papers, Devouring Time is the first and only literary biography of this beloved author, whose playful, irreverent, and spiritual work continues to find and delight new listeners.
Jim Harrison (1937–2016) was widely considered one of the finest voices of his generation. His twenty-one books of fiction and fourteen books of poetry influenced a generation of writers. Harrison helped to shape the course of contemporary American literature, revitalizing in particular the novella form, of which he was a recognized master.
Harrison’s literary achievements were matched only by the literary persona that he cultivated during a fecund time in American letters and in the company of a remarkable cohort of friends, writers, actors, and artists, including Thomas McGuane, Peter Matthiessen, and Jack Nicholson. Writing for magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Esquire, and Outside in the 1970s, his journalism won him a loyal readership who reveled in his high spirits and prodigious appetites.
For all his notoriety as a writer of prose, however, poetry remained his first and longest-abiding love. He cherished his geographic remoteness from what he called the “dream coasts” of New York City and Los Angeles, preferring to hunt, fish, and drink in the backwoods bars of Michigan, Arizona, and Montana.
Based on more than one hundred original interviews and drawing upon Harrison’s collected papers, Devouring Time is the first and only literary biography of this beloved author, whose playful, irreverent, and spiritual work continues to find and delight new listeners.
558 pages, Hardcover
Published November 4, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
March 3, 2026
What a character JH was ... almost as entertaining as his fictional one's who mirror his love of food, drink, fishing, hunting, bird dogs & birds, and the list goes on. He had a huge appetite for all his loves and not much willpower to curb the excesses which would eventually kill him but not after a prodigious run of book publishing across genre's even though he thought himself first and foremost a poet. I've read all his books and continue to reread them periodically. The cover photo for this book pretty much tells the story of this writer's life depicted in the ravaged mess of visage ol' buzzard puss with the ubiquitous fag dangling out the side, yikes! But what a lovely soul. RIP "Brown Dog."
June 3, 2025
This book is personal for me because Jim Harrison was one of my favorite writers for a long time. He identified as a poet, but became a prolific sports writer and master of the novella. One of the main influences on his life was the writer Thomas McGuane, who got Harrison involved in fly fishing in Key West, the enclave of artist and writers in Livingston, Montana, and through his screenwriting with the film industry. Harrison began sports writing on bird hunting and fishing for Sports Illustrated and then Esquire magazine. Harrison became close friends with Jack Nicholson, and that relationship provided connections and financial support that parlayed Harrison’s work into film adaptations. The most well known of his work is Legends of the Fall, which portrays a love story where one brother brings his girl friend home to visit in Montana and she falls hard for his more handsome brother who abandons her. Harrison was known for being stubborn and struggled with severe bouts of depression fed by his alcoholism. He gained a reputation as a gourmand which impacted his health due to his heavy wine drinking and a diet that resulted in gout and diabetes. He would not have lived his life any other way, and was very much a writer’s writer and a macho personality to the maximum. Part of his depression was linked to his view of himself as an artist, and he despaired becoming commercial even though his friends did not appreciate his viewpoint of his (and their own) financial success. The other factor was being blinded in one eye as a child, and he was self conscious about his blindness. He could not manage money or file his taxes, financially support his children or stay loyal to his wife, and much of his success was due to his friends’ generosity. Harrison reminds me a great dealof the writer Walter Benjamin where he always seemed to get in his own way.
December 15, 2025
I am giving this biography four stars because Jim Harrington had a remarkable life and his writing can be superb and very enjoyable at times. (Harrison wrote over 30 works of fiction and they are uneven in quality as one might expect.) It is a life worth examining and writing about, and the author covers it in engaging detail. I did not know the full extent of Harrison's poetry writing so I intend to read that in the future. The biography itself is good but it is apparent that the author is a devoted fan and he loses his objectivity at times. Also, he says virtually nothing about Jim Harrison's questionable portrayal of young women with older men--an unrealistic/sexist age gap. The author should have explored this as it is apparent in much of Harrison's later writing in particular.
February 12, 2026
In the late seventies, when my writing career was getting started, I followed the literary world the way other men follow the sports pages, and I vividly remember the event that put Jim Harrison on the map: Esquire published the entirety of one of his novellas in a single issue, and promised to publish another in an upcoming one; that book of three novellas, Legends of the Fall, brought Harrison fame and fortune. My impression was that he was (as a college friend used to say) one of the tough guys of American literature, like Harry Crews, Larry Brown, Norman Mailer for that matter. I wasn’t interested in such people. I was reading a lot of women’s literature at the time. I didn’t think the world needed one more hairy-chested male.
But when I got a part-time job at the Regulator Bookshop and began discussing books with fellow employees, I found that a couple of the hardcore feminists counted Harrison as one of their favorite writers. I was startled. Dell was bringing out a uniform edition of all his books in paperback, and though he looked tough in his photos (his squinting left eye, which he had lost in an accident when he was a child, added to the feeling), he was lying in the grass with his daughter, which added a touch of humanity. I also loved the looks of those editions. You can’t tell a book by its cover, but sometimes I like the damn cover.
I picked up one of the early novels, I think it was Sundog, and was immediately hooked. I started reading everything he had written, and through the years he became the one person whose book I would buy as soon as it appeared in the bookstore. I didn’t give a damn what the reviews said. I have a bookcase which houses favorite writers, and Harrison occupies the top shelf, his books ranging all across it. I’ve read every book on the shelf, many two or three times.
What I loved about Harrison had nothing to do with macho or not macho, male or female (though my favorite of his novels, Dalva, has a female narrator). I loved his offhanded way of delivering information, his idiosyncratic prose, which seemed somehow intimate and personal in a way that other writers are not. It’s hard to describe what I’m talking about, but it never fails to be true, in his novels, novellas, even in a lot of his poetry. I’m not a big poetry reader, but I read all of his, and it had the same quality I find in the prose. It’s not that he was writing autobiographically; I don’t think he usually was, but he was writing from a unique sensibility, and you had a feeling of knowing the person. And he admitted to his worst foibles. He was gluttonous, drunken, drug-added, horny and apparently (it seemed) unfaithful to his wife (I used to wonder what she thought). He put it all down on paper. I loved his honesty.
He said in various places that he read Henry Miller—another writer with similar qualities—to get a jolt of real life from him. I felt the same way about Harrison.[1]
These characters reached their apotheosis in one named Brown Dog, who was the protagonist in novellas that Harrison regularly published as books of three (one Brown Dog story per book), and eventually merited his own collection, a 525 page volume. Brown Dog was a walking Id. He did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, and if that involved eating some massive amount of food with several gallons of alcohol, then making an awkward pass at the closest woman within reach, so be it.
But I have to say—and my self from twenty years ago would have been stunned to hear this—I eventually grew tired of it. Behavior that seems funny and painfully honest when a character is 35 or 40 can seem willfully stupid when he passes age sixty, then seventy. It’s one thing to admit to your foibles when you’re young, another to continue that behavior into old age, by which time you might think a man would acquire some wisdom. Also, frankly (I say this at age 77), a man in his seventies who’s still making passes at women in their twenties and thirties is not funny, he’s embarrassing. At some point a heavy drinker is just a drunk. And as for still being a glutton, when it involves a lunch that includes 37 courses, with multiple wines, it seems a bit over the top.
I also felt that, in his later novels, Harrison fell into the familiar trap of parodying himself. A Jim Harrison character had to do Jim Harrison things, and at some point you want to say, I believe I’ve read this before. He seemed to keep writing in order to keep living—I understand that impulse—but he wasn’t letting the tank fill after he finished something. And the mystery novels he wrote at the end of his life were painful to read. He had adopted a new genre, but it hadn’t adopted him.
All that having been said, I anxiously awaited the biography that I knew must be in the works, and I was delighted to find that Todd Goddard has done an excellent job of reporting on Harrison’s life. He mentions things I suspected but didn’t actually know. For one thing, Harrison considered himself first and foremost a poet, all of his life, even though his vast fame came from his novels. He kept writing poetry until the end (and had just written one when he died, of an apparent heart attack, at age of 78). He did love his wife and his family, but spent most of his life apart from them; he had the same kind of wanderlust that Peter Matthiessen had, but for a different reason; Matthiessen seemed to be looking for some utopian ideal, while Harrison seemed to be running from something.
He had plenty to run from. A little girl had poked out his eye with a broken bottle when he was seven years old, and his father and sister, both of whom he loved dearly, were killed in an accident with a drunk driver when he was just getting started as a poet. In a way he never got over those things, despite years of therapy, and often struggled with depression. He seemed to face his pain squarely in his writing, but in his life just kept running. It’s amazing that he accomplished as much as he did
So I have mixed feelings about the man, even though he’s still on the top shelf of that bookcase. I think Dalva is a great novel, along with The Road Home, a kind of sequel. I would actually recommend nearly all of his novels; he just fell off toward the end. The poetry too, though I’m hardly a judge of poets, but it’s very much the work of Jim Harrison. And the many occasional essays, including lots of those about food, which you can read until you feel stuffed. (One essay, not on food, bore one of the all-time great titles: “Ice Fishing: The Moron Sport.”) I wish he had settled into a more comfortable old age, the way Henry Miller himself did: he never renounced his early books, but he took up other subjects. But Harrison was who he was, and he occupies a huge space in my reading life. I’m glad he found a worthy biographer.
[1] Miller is on the second shelf of that bookcase.
www.davidguy.org
But when I got a part-time job at the Regulator Bookshop and began discussing books with fellow employees, I found that a couple of the hardcore feminists counted Harrison as one of their favorite writers. I was startled. Dell was bringing out a uniform edition of all his books in paperback, and though he looked tough in his photos (his squinting left eye, which he had lost in an accident when he was a child, added to the feeling), he was lying in the grass with his daughter, which added a touch of humanity. I also loved the looks of those editions. You can’t tell a book by its cover, but sometimes I like the damn cover.
I picked up one of the early novels, I think it was Sundog, and was immediately hooked. I started reading everything he had written, and through the years he became the one person whose book I would buy as soon as it appeared in the bookstore. I didn’t give a damn what the reviews said. I have a bookcase which houses favorite writers, and Harrison occupies the top shelf, his books ranging all across it. I’ve read every book on the shelf, many two or three times.
What I loved about Harrison had nothing to do with macho or not macho, male or female (though my favorite of his novels, Dalva, has a female narrator). I loved his offhanded way of delivering information, his idiosyncratic prose, which seemed somehow intimate and personal in a way that other writers are not. It’s hard to describe what I’m talking about, but it never fails to be true, in his novels, novellas, even in a lot of his poetry. I’m not a big poetry reader, but I read all of his, and it had the same quality I find in the prose. It’s not that he was writing autobiographically; I don’t think he usually was, but he was writing from a unique sensibility, and you had a feeling of knowing the person. And he admitted to his worst foibles. He was gluttonous, drunken, drug-added, horny and apparently (it seemed) unfaithful to his wife (I used to wonder what she thought). He put it all down on paper. I loved his honesty.
He said in various places that he read Henry Miller—another writer with similar qualities—to get a jolt of real life from him. I felt the same way about Harrison.[1]
These characters reached their apotheosis in one named Brown Dog, who was the protagonist in novellas that Harrison regularly published as books of three (one Brown Dog story per book), and eventually merited his own collection, a 525 page volume. Brown Dog was a walking Id. He did exactly what he wanted, when he wanted, and if that involved eating some massive amount of food with several gallons of alcohol, then making an awkward pass at the closest woman within reach, so be it.
But I have to say—and my self from twenty years ago would have been stunned to hear this—I eventually grew tired of it. Behavior that seems funny and painfully honest when a character is 35 or 40 can seem willfully stupid when he passes age sixty, then seventy. It’s one thing to admit to your foibles when you’re young, another to continue that behavior into old age, by which time you might think a man would acquire some wisdom. Also, frankly (I say this at age 77), a man in his seventies who’s still making passes at women in their twenties and thirties is not funny, he’s embarrassing. At some point a heavy drinker is just a drunk. And as for still being a glutton, when it involves a lunch that includes 37 courses, with multiple wines, it seems a bit over the top.
I also felt that, in his later novels, Harrison fell into the familiar trap of parodying himself. A Jim Harrison character had to do Jim Harrison things, and at some point you want to say, I believe I’ve read this before. He seemed to keep writing in order to keep living—I understand that impulse—but he wasn’t letting the tank fill after he finished something. And the mystery novels he wrote at the end of his life were painful to read. He had adopted a new genre, but it hadn’t adopted him.
All that having been said, I anxiously awaited the biography that I knew must be in the works, and I was delighted to find that Todd Goddard has done an excellent job of reporting on Harrison’s life. He mentions things I suspected but didn’t actually know. For one thing, Harrison considered himself first and foremost a poet, all of his life, even though his vast fame came from his novels. He kept writing poetry until the end (and had just written one when he died, of an apparent heart attack, at age of 78). He did love his wife and his family, but spent most of his life apart from them; he had the same kind of wanderlust that Peter Matthiessen had, but for a different reason; Matthiessen seemed to be looking for some utopian ideal, while Harrison seemed to be running from something.
He had plenty to run from. A little girl had poked out his eye with a broken bottle when he was seven years old, and his father and sister, both of whom he loved dearly, were killed in an accident with a drunk driver when he was just getting started as a poet. In a way he never got over those things, despite years of therapy, and often struggled with depression. He seemed to face his pain squarely in his writing, but in his life just kept running. It’s amazing that he accomplished as much as he did
So I have mixed feelings about the man, even though he’s still on the top shelf of that bookcase. I think Dalva is a great novel, along with The Road Home, a kind of sequel. I would actually recommend nearly all of his novels; he just fell off toward the end. The poetry too, though I’m hardly a judge of poets, but it’s very much the work of Jim Harrison. And the many occasional essays, including lots of those about food, which you can read until you feel stuffed. (One essay, not on food, bore one of the all-time great titles: “Ice Fishing: The Moron Sport.”) I wish he had settled into a more comfortable old age, the way Henry Miller himself did: he never renounced his early books, but he took up other subjects. But Harrison was who he was, and he occupies a huge space in my reading life. I’m glad he found a worthy biographer.
[1] Miller is on the second shelf of that bookcase.
www.davidguy.org
October 5, 2025
My thanks to NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for an advance copy of of this biography that looks at one of the last great men of letters in American literature, a man of huge talent, huge skill, and huge ways of making problems for himself and others, a poet, a writer an essayist, and one that we will probably not ever see again.
The lives of writers in America seem are classified by best-selling authors, and well the rest. As a bookseller I have customers who only read those books they can find in the Sunday paper, authors with crosses next to their name for stores getting more copies than they wanted, without looking at anything else. There are genre writers, and of course some cult writers, but literature is not something people care about any more. One can understand why, as the world is kind of a nightmare. However as one who has always found solace in reading, I love to veer away from the bestsellers and go into the weeds, and in the weeds I always find great things. Jim Harrison was one of those. I discovered him more from his journalism than anything else, than his poetry and finally his fiction. Stories that seemed simple and yet were anything but. Stories that had a depth to them, a loneliness sometimes and a beauty. Jim Harrison was a big man to his detriment in both health and relationships, a man who loved life, food, writing and literature. With an abliity to match. Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, A Writer's Life by Todd Goddard is a magisterial biography of the man, and an era in literature that will never return, loaded with stories, exploits, embarrassing tales, and of course the writing, which will never be forgotten.
Jim Harrison was born in Michigan in 1937, and he never really left the Midwest no matter how far he roamed. Jim's parents were big readers, something they passed on to their children, five in number. Jim's life was changed when during a game of what could be called Doctor, a young playmate stabbed him in the eye, destroying it. Jim was changed in many ways by this incident, both physically and emotionally. Jim liked to roam, leaving college a few times to travel to San Francisco, New York and Boston, living at the poverty level but feeling like a writer. Marriage and fatherhood made him batten down and work hard, completing college, going on to graduate school, and allowing him to meet many people who would become friends, and mentors later in life. A letter to a poet earned him a book deal. The sales got him another book, and slowly a life in publishing. Jim set up a magazine, began to work on more poems, thought of books and turned to journalism so as not to have to teach college classes, something he felt he wasn't good at. Slowly his reputation began to grow, as well as his appetites in many different things.
Harrison lived his life in full and this biography really covers that. This is not a hagiography, the author is quite clear about the nasty things Harrison was up to, affairs for example. This is a real man in full, capturing the inner man and the skill he brought to the written word. All while enjoying numerous friendships and eating 37 course meals. The book is very well written, and really gets into the background and tragedies that shaped Harrison as a man and writer. For a work so comprehensive, the book reads very well, never seeming to bog down, and even in things like the politics of higher learning moves well, with interesting stories about poets having parties that sound like true bacchanal.
A very interesting look at a time in literature where words were thought to shape the future, complete with writers and egos to match. Goddard covers not only Harrison's world, but the literature around him, showing Harrison's place, influence, and even legacy. A very well-written biography on a complicated man and one I quite enjoyed.
The lives of writers in America seem are classified by best-selling authors, and well the rest. As a bookseller I have customers who only read those books they can find in the Sunday paper, authors with crosses next to their name for stores getting more copies than they wanted, without looking at anything else. There are genre writers, and of course some cult writers, but literature is not something people care about any more. One can understand why, as the world is kind of a nightmare. However as one who has always found solace in reading, I love to veer away from the bestsellers and go into the weeds, and in the weeds I always find great things. Jim Harrison was one of those. I discovered him more from his journalism than anything else, than his poetry and finally his fiction. Stories that seemed simple and yet were anything but. Stories that had a depth to them, a loneliness sometimes and a beauty. Jim Harrison was a big man to his detriment in both health and relationships, a man who loved life, food, writing and literature. With an abliity to match. Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, A Writer's Life by Todd Goddard is a magisterial biography of the man, and an era in literature that will never return, loaded with stories, exploits, embarrassing tales, and of course the writing, which will never be forgotten.
Jim Harrison was born in Michigan in 1937, and he never really left the Midwest no matter how far he roamed. Jim's parents were big readers, something they passed on to their children, five in number. Jim's life was changed when during a game of what could be called Doctor, a young playmate stabbed him in the eye, destroying it. Jim was changed in many ways by this incident, both physically and emotionally. Jim liked to roam, leaving college a few times to travel to San Francisco, New York and Boston, living at the poverty level but feeling like a writer. Marriage and fatherhood made him batten down and work hard, completing college, going on to graduate school, and allowing him to meet many people who would become friends, and mentors later in life. A letter to a poet earned him a book deal. The sales got him another book, and slowly a life in publishing. Jim set up a magazine, began to work on more poems, thought of books and turned to journalism so as not to have to teach college classes, something he felt he wasn't good at. Slowly his reputation began to grow, as well as his appetites in many different things.
Harrison lived his life in full and this biography really covers that. This is not a hagiography, the author is quite clear about the nasty things Harrison was up to, affairs for example. This is a real man in full, capturing the inner man and the skill he brought to the written word. All while enjoying numerous friendships and eating 37 course meals. The book is very well written, and really gets into the background and tragedies that shaped Harrison as a man and writer. For a work so comprehensive, the book reads very well, never seeming to bog down, and even in things like the politics of higher learning moves well, with interesting stories about poets having parties that sound like true bacchanal.
A very interesting look at a time in literature where words were thought to shape the future, complete with writers and egos to match. Goddard covers not only Harrison's world, but the literature around him, showing Harrison's place, influence, and even legacy. A very well-written biography on a complicated man and one I quite enjoyed.
January 12, 2026
I have ben reading and championing the late Jim Harrison for years, so I was excited to hear that a biography was forthcoming. I have now read Todd Goddard’s DEVOURING TIME: Jim Harrison, A WRITER:S LIDE and have to say that, given the wildness and complexity of the subject, the book is for the most part surprisingly dull. Perhaps the Harrison legend that had already been established made the shortcomings of the biography inevitable.
Readers who remain with the book despite the prevailing dullness do get occasional rewards:
I learned that in the1960s editor Robert Gottlieb asked Harrison if he was interested in writing a biography of Wiliam Carlos Williams. Harrison declined. Later, as an editor of The New Yorker, Gottlieb published Harrison’s novella “The Woman Lit by Fireflies” in the magazine.
After the success of his LEGENDS OF THE FALL and with newfound financial security, Harrison hired a friend to be his personal manager. He explained to her that he didn’t know “how to do life”— everyday details like filing tax returns — and that her job would be to see to these things while he saw to his writing. .She was eventually granted power of attorney for both Harrison and his wife and more or less assumed responsibility for managing their finances.
There are some memorable anecdotes and quotes involving persons other than Harrison. “I know exactly what you mean about these fiction projects that show only intermittent s signs of life,” fellow author and friend Thomas McGuane writes to Harrison. “In my opinion they are usually the victims of planning. We Lit guys are paid to show up and bust our asses, not to make plans nor, especially, outlines. I think the way to do it is to get the tone right like Faulkner or Sherwood Anderson did, then gun it.” I’m glad that t observation has been preserved.
When, even after he begins earning good money through his Hollywood work, Harrison gets into financial difficulty, he writes to someone that, after all, Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain were worse at managing finances than he was.
I cannot close without pointing out that the paper in the hardbound first edition of this book is unforgivably flimsy. Pages started curling as I was reading.
Readers who remain with the book despite the prevailing dullness do get occasional rewards:
I learned that in the1960s editor Robert Gottlieb asked Harrison if he was interested in writing a biography of Wiliam Carlos Williams. Harrison declined. Later, as an editor of The New Yorker, Gottlieb published Harrison’s novella “The Woman Lit by Fireflies” in the magazine.
After the success of his LEGENDS OF THE FALL and with newfound financial security, Harrison hired a friend to be his personal manager. He explained to her that he didn’t know “how to do life”— everyday details like filing tax returns — and that her job would be to see to these things while he saw to his writing. .She was eventually granted power of attorney for both Harrison and his wife and more or less assumed responsibility for managing their finances.
There are some memorable anecdotes and quotes involving persons other than Harrison. “I know exactly what you mean about these fiction projects that show only intermittent s signs of life,” fellow author and friend Thomas McGuane writes to Harrison. “In my opinion they are usually the victims of planning. We Lit guys are paid to show up and bust our asses, not to make plans nor, especially, outlines. I think the way to do it is to get the tone right like Faulkner or Sherwood Anderson did, then gun it.” I’m glad that t observation has been preserved.
When, even after he begins earning good money through his Hollywood work, Harrison gets into financial difficulty, he writes to someone that, after all, Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain were worse at managing finances than he was.
I cannot close without pointing out that the paper in the hardbound first edition of this book is unforgivably flimsy. Pages started curling as I was reading.
November 21, 2025
I had the feeling in the first half of the book that this might be a bit pedestrian, simply marching from one book to the next, from one meal to the next. But I was completely hooked by the middle. Harrison enjoyed himself, and, yes, seemed to hang around with famous people (or did they hang around with him?), but he worked constantly. Right up to the end when he was in pain and filled with grief. And he was not afraid of going after the biggest themes, even as he grounded them in sex, food, and travel.
Goddard accepts the story that Harrison died with a pencil in his hand after finishing a last poem. Although he gives the fiction and its position in the world (particularly in France) most of the space, he is very clear that Harrison's first love, the art that shaped him, was poetry. (And I will keep this book with Harrison's poems, not with his novels) I think that the level of research here--the time spent in the archives, the interviews with many people, family and friends, who are rapidly aging and fading--assures that this will be the touchstone biography for much of the work that will follow.
It is worth stating that some have noted in their responses here that Harrison could be boorish. Because I am a part of the literary community in Michigan, I have certainly heard some of the stories. But I had several occasions to deal directly with Jim, both as a writer and as a bookseller, and I always found him gracious, often funny, and invariably polite, even to jerks who wanted to get too many books signed, books they had not bought at the bookshop where I worked. In the early 90s I published a tiny chapbook of poems about my experience at Isle Royale National Park. It was entitled "Dream of the Black Wolf." Jim came through town when I was gone, and he must have purchased a book (even though I would certainly have given him one). A few weeks later, I received a hand made card with a beautiful photo of a black wolf glued on the front, complimenting me on the poems. My first thought was, "ah, Jim, you didn't have to do that!"
Goddard accepts the story that Harrison died with a pencil in his hand after finishing a last poem. Although he gives the fiction and its position in the world (particularly in France) most of the space, he is very clear that Harrison's first love, the art that shaped him, was poetry. (And I will keep this book with Harrison's poems, not with his novels) I think that the level of research here--the time spent in the archives, the interviews with many people, family and friends, who are rapidly aging and fading--assures that this will be the touchstone biography for much of the work that will follow.
It is worth stating that some have noted in their responses here that Harrison could be boorish. Because I am a part of the literary community in Michigan, I have certainly heard some of the stories. But I had several occasions to deal directly with Jim, both as a writer and as a bookseller, and I always found him gracious, often funny, and invariably polite, even to jerks who wanted to get too many books signed, books they had not bought at the bookshop where I worked. In the early 90s I published a tiny chapbook of poems about my experience at Isle Royale National Park. It was entitled "Dream of the Black Wolf." Jim came through town when I was gone, and he must have purchased a book (even though I would certainly have given him one). A few weeks later, I received a hand made card with a beautiful photo of a black wolf glued on the front, complimenting me on the poems. My first thought was, "ah, Jim, you didn't have to do that!"
November 18, 2025
While a supremely gifted poet and author, I had an idea of what a dirtbag Harrison was in his personal life; this book confirms it.
Dazzled by whores, drugs, Hollywood-commies, pedos, perverts, perverted sexually predatory gluttons, etc., he was a confirmed user of folks, sellout and notorious scumbag. I wonder if losing his eye at eight to a girl he was 'playing doctor with' started him down a path he could retreat from. I can only imagine what prompted the girl to defend herself in such a way.
Shame that my main literary hero didn't have much in regards to virtue; pro signal-caller however. I love his stories and poems but the man himself leaves me wanting.
I guess it's no surprise. Just a continuation of themes in Raw and the Cooked:
The whole, 'I champion the poor huddled masses, the impoverished and idle', as he marinates his liver in thousand dollars bottles of wine and guzzles V.O., dusts his nasal cavity with Colombian happy powder, eats force fed goose liver like potato chips, leers after countless trollops, name drops other snobbish liberal twerps, twats and whores of Hollywood, old money dweebs, and trust fund babies - who are his buddies of gluttony - is bilious and hypocritical. That he continued to smoke around his wife is unconscionable. That she stuck with him through that bullshit along with his abundant infidelity makes me shake my head. Maybe she had her own unsavory traits that kept her there.
Thanks for the book Todd Goddard. Well written & researched. It reminds me not to examine my heroes too closely lest they start looking more like clowns than champions.
Dazzled by whores, drugs, Hollywood-commies, pedos, perverts, perverted sexually predatory gluttons, etc., he was a confirmed user of folks, sellout and notorious scumbag. I wonder if losing his eye at eight to a girl he was 'playing doctor with' started him down a path he could retreat from. I can only imagine what prompted the girl to defend herself in such a way.
Shame that my main literary hero didn't have much in regards to virtue; pro signal-caller however. I love his stories and poems but the man himself leaves me wanting.
I guess it's no surprise. Just a continuation of themes in Raw and the Cooked:
The whole, 'I champion the poor huddled masses, the impoverished and idle', as he marinates his liver in thousand dollars bottles of wine and guzzles V.O., dusts his nasal cavity with Colombian happy powder, eats force fed goose liver like potato chips, leers after countless trollops, name drops other snobbish liberal twerps, twats and whores of Hollywood, old money dweebs, and trust fund babies - who are his buddies of gluttony - is bilious and hypocritical. That he continued to smoke around his wife is unconscionable. That she stuck with him through that bullshit along with his abundant infidelity makes me shake my head. Maybe she had her own unsavory traits that kept her there.
Thanks for the book Todd Goddard. Well written & researched. It reminds me not to examine my heroes too closely lest they start looking more like clowns than champions.
December 26, 2025
F-ing loved it. Peeled back the curtain a bit on one of my very favorite authors. I knew some of his backstory but nothing like this, the extent to which poetry was his first true love and then how screen writing changed the trajectory of his career. Or how many films he worked on.
One thing I have always wondered is how autobiographical his characters are, especially brown dog. Specifically his extra marital sexual endeavors. Seems like Jim actually did live like this, at least early in his marriage which blows my mind. As much as I respect his writing and “devouring life”, I don’t get how he could be so callous to Linda, especially with his smoking in the house throughout their marriage even when she had life threatening illness.
He could have delved deeper on that aspect but I also understand Jim is a little on a pedestal.
Also loved learning about his relationship with McGuane. Had no idea how close they were. Also Mathiessen and later in life Bourdian and Batali and other chefs. I like how he tied hi falutin eating and drinking with grouse and venison from the field, similar to Paris and Lyon with small town Michigan living. A little yin yang pulsing.
Anyhow, this took a while because I read it leading up to the holidays but it read like an adventure novel to me and I hope to remember to reference it as I continue to build out my Harrison and friends library.
One thing I have always wondered is how autobiographical his characters are, especially brown dog. Specifically his extra marital sexual endeavors. Seems like Jim actually did live like this, at least early in his marriage which blows my mind. As much as I respect his writing and “devouring life”, I don’t get how he could be so callous to Linda, especially with his smoking in the house throughout their marriage even when she had life threatening illness.
He could have delved deeper on that aspect but I also understand Jim is a little on a pedestal.
Also loved learning about his relationship with McGuane. Had no idea how close they were. Also Mathiessen and later in life Bourdian and Batali and other chefs. I like how he tied hi falutin eating and drinking with grouse and venison from the field, similar to Paris and Lyon with small town Michigan living. A little yin yang pulsing.
Anyhow, this took a while because I read it leading up to the holidays but it read like an adventure novel to me and I hope to remember to reference it as I continue to build out my Harrison and friends library.
January 26, 2026
Todd Goddard brings the first big biography of poet and writer Jim Harrison. I cannot recall when I first started reading Harrison - it dates long before Good Reads. I'm not much on the poetry but the novels and novellas and some of the journalism always shined.
Probably should not read biographies of favorite authors - you may not like the man.
With Harrison, there are lots of selfish acts. He wanted to be a poet but could not support his family when most poets survive via academia or in business (insurer Wallace Stevens; banker T.S. Eliot; Dr. William Carlos Williams). Harrison couldn't teach, so he did journalism and screenwriting, which paid his expenses and exotic location trips.
Harrison famously worried about money, but spent what he made and more until Legends of the Fall and Revenge allowed him to double-dip in fiction and Hollywood. His cigarette consumption, expensive wines, lavish 37-course meal and vodka budget would bankrupt George IV. And then his treatment of loyal wife Linda - 50 years in marriage - with the travel trips, the affairs and the smoking while she suffered from asthma and a host of maladies that lead to her death before Harrison - but not by much.
Love the literature and overlook the writer. That may be a safe plan.
Probably should not read biographies of favorite authors - you may not like the man.
With Harrison, there are lots of selfish acts. He wanted to be a poet but could not support his family when most poets survive via academia or in business (insurer Wallace Stevens; banker T.S. Eliot; Dr. William Carlos Williams). Harrison couldn't teach, so he did journalism and screenwriting, which paid his expenses and exotic location trips.
Harrison famously worried about money, but spent what he made and more until Legends of the Fall and Revenge allowed him to double-dip in fiction and Hollywood. His cigarette consumption, expensive wines, lavish 37-course meal and vodka budget would bankrupt George IV. And then his treatment of loyal wife Linda - 50 years in marriage - with the travel trips, the affairs and the smoking while she suffered from asthma and a host of maladies that lead to her death before Harrison - but not by much.
Love the literature and overlook the writer. That may be a safe plan.
February 12, 2026
Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life is a richly textured and deeply absorbing biography that captures both the literary brilliance and the outsized human presence of one of America’s most beloved writers. Todd Goddard presents a definitive portrait of Jim Harrison, tracing his evolution as a novelist, poet, journalist, and cultural figure whose work reshaped contemporary American literature. The book thoughtfully situates Harrison’s writing within the landscapes, friendships, and personal appetites that fueled his creativity, offering readers an intimate and expansive view of his life.
What makes this biography especially compelling is its balance of literary insight and lived experience. Drawing on extensive interviews and archival material, Goddard illuminates Harrison’s devotion to poetry, his mastery of the novella, and his resistance to literary centers in favor of a life rooted in place, appetite, and independence. The narrative captures Harrison’s irreverence, generosity, contradictions, and spiritual depth, making this not only a study of a writer’s career but a vivid exploration of a life lived intensely and on his own terms.
What makes this biography especially compelling is its balance of literary insight and lived experience. Drawing on extensive interviews and archival material, Goddard illuminates Harrison’s devotion to poetry, his mastery of the novella, and his resistance to literary centers in favor of a life rooted in place, appetite, and independence. The narrative captures Harrison’s irreverence, generosity, contradictions, and spiritual depth, making this not only a study of a writer’s career but a vivid exploration of a life lived intensely and on his own terms.
January 9, 2026
An excellent biography. It is a pure biography, not a literary biography. The themes of Harrison’s work, the general forms of his poetry, and their reception are addressed, but only to the extent that they are relevant to the story of his life. It captures, or seems to, the spirit of the man, the worlds in which in he moved, and the people in his orbit. It is sympathetic but honest; thus one can appreciate from an honest accounting the flaws in Harrison’s personal life, especially in his approach to women (and of course to his wife). He comes across as largely lovable but human. The author addresses his interpersonal relationships particularly well, giving the measure of a number of friends and loved ones as people and in relation to the subject.
December 24, 2025
Harrison, by far, was one of my favorite authors. I knew nothing about his life other than that fact; he was a very fine writer. The author of this biography corrected that. I now know Harrison not only as a great author but also as a poet, essayist, given to excess in drink, food or just about anything he did. By the time he got up and left whatever metaphorical table he had set, the table was empty. He drained life.
This is one of the finest biographies I've ever read and by the time I came to the end of it, I felt the loss of a close friend. I mourned losing him and I mourned being finished with reading such a fine work.
This is one of the finest biographies I've ever read and by the time I came to the end of it, I felt the loss of a close friend. I mourned losing him and I mourned being finished with reading such a fine work.
December 31, 2025
Well researched and respectful without being obsequious to its subject. Turns out Jim was a bit more full of shit than I thought but it's all well and good for a great storyteller to be a great storyteller. Only the most boring among us don't do rewrites on our lives to make them more interesting.
This book has sent me back to Harrison's works (most of which I read before joining this site). Looking forward to spending time with them again.
This book has sent me back to Harrison's works (most of which I read before joining this site). Looking forward to spending time with them again.
December 17, 2025
A complex guy with a fascinating story.
Lots of details about his life and writing. Personally, I wished it had focused on his hunting and fishing more, but that's because that is my personal interest. This is a great story and great insight into a literary giant many seem to forget in today's world of literature.
Lots of details about his life and writing. Personally, I wished it had focused on his hunting and fishing more, but that's because that is my personal interest. This is a great story and great insight into a literary giant many seem to forget in today's world of literature.
December 2, 2025
This meticulously researched and comprehensive biography of Jim Harrison is a worthy tribute to a talented but deeply flawed writer, and a work that will surely remain the definitive account of his life and work.
December 23, 2025
Jim has always been a conflicting figure to me; his myriad strengths and weaknesses are evident in all of his works. Goddard did an excellent job looking at Harrison's life, highlighting the good that is so evidently there, and the ugly as was often needed.
October 13, 2025
Please read my complete review here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/msarki/...
https://open.substack.com/pub/msarki/...
November 8, 2025
Outstanding! Amazing biography! Informative, delightful, funny, touching, truly wonderful. Highly suggest it for those interested in poetry, Jim Harrison, writing, and writers.
November 17, 2025
a life well-lived for the most part. and this biography is excellent at intertwining the life to the writing.
December 20, 2025
A masterpiece of biography. In 420 riveting pages, Todd Goddard somehow manages to convey the WHOLE of his subject. The great writer/poet, yes. But also the relatable human being.
December 29, 2025
I have read many of his prose works but I really cannot recall them. Very detailed biography
February 24, 2026
It’s an exhaustive look at the life of one of my favorite offers, warts and all. Highly recommended.
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