Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer's Life

by Todd Goddard

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.

Genres: Biography, Writing

350 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication November 4, 2025

Reviews

[Kerry Pickens · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

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.

[M. Sarki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Please read my complete review here:
https://open.substack.com/pub/msarki/...