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© 2000 Kathy Craig |
Returning to Earth
by Jim Harrison
January 2008
Synopsis
"Hailed by The New York Times Book Review as "a master … who makes the ordinary extraordinary, the unnamable unforgettable," beloved author Jim Harrison returns with a masterpiece--a tender, profound, and magnificent novel about life, death, and finding redemption in unlikely places. Slowly dying of Lou Gehrig's Disease, Donald, a middle-aged Chippewa-Finnish man, begins dictating family stories he has never shared with anyone, hoping to preserve history for his children. The dignity of Donald's death and his legacy encourages his loved ones to find a way to redeem--and let go of--the past, whether through his daughter's emersion in Chippewa religious ideas or his mourning wife's attempt to escape the malevolent influence of her own father. A deeply moving book about origins and endings, and how to live with honor for the dead, Returning to Earth is one of the finest novels of Harrison's long, storied career, and will confirm his standing as one of the most important American writers now working." (Publisher)
Reviews
- "As a rough rule, it seems that writers fall into two camps. There are those who delight in rousting the truth from its concealment amid pieties and convention. If they must strip-mine the world to expose its hypocrisy, they will do so, even if they leave a landscape barren of hope. Then there are those writers who prefer to remythologize life on earth, finding it rich with strange congruences and possibilities. Jim Harrison is a writer of the second type, and Returning to Earth is his extraordinary valediction to mourning. It sharpens one’s appetite for life even at its darkest." (The New York Times)
- "Harrison's novel of a dying man's retelling of his complex family history requires multiple readers to bring it to life. Svendsgaard, Porter, Weiner and Garcia all stick close to the rueful and world-weary, with long pauses and a subtle downturn of intonation marking their readings. They tag-team Harrison's prose, which shifts back and forth between the reminiscences of its protagonists, with Svendsgaard often leaping in to amend or second the stray thoughts of dying Donald Burkett. Weiner, as Donald, gives his reading just the right flat, clipped tone, each sentence ending abruptly and without warning. Donald's memories, in Weiner's rendering, are less the florid interior dramas of a romantically rendered past than the honest remembrance of what once was. The other readers follow Weiner's lead, echoing his spare performance ably and underscoring his fine work." (Publisher's Weekly)
Book Club Rating and Comments
If you or your book club has read this book and would like to share your comments, please email us at upthecreekbc@yahoo.com.
Other Books by Jim Harrison
- 'After Ikkyu and Other Poems'
- 'The Beast God Forgot to Invent'
- 'Boy Who Ran to the Woods'
- 'Braided Creek'
- 'Dalva'
- 'Farmer'
- 'Good Day to Die'
- 'Just Before Dark'
- 'Legends of the Fall'
- 'Letters to Yesenin'
- 'Off to the Side'
- 'The Raw and the Cooked: Adventures of a Roving Gourmand'
- 'Road Home'
- 'Saving Daylight'
- 'Shape of the Journey'
- 'Summer He Didn't Die'
- 'True North'