Julip

This is my first experience reading Jim Harrison and it was a rewarding one. Each of these three novellas made me want to share this book with a different person in my life. In each of the three stories the lead charecter is so interesting and well developed that you wish you could follow them further. These charecters are so diverse (a sprited,young, female dog trainer; a horny, vagabond, wannabee native american; and a aging dispossed professer) that I was amazed that one author created them all. This is truly a book with something for everyone and a lot to love for any reader.

Julip is a collection of 3 uniquely written novellas about 3 different but equally spectacular characters. Jim Harrison's writing is easy, flowing and deliberate but at the same time complex and coordinated. I'm constantly jotting down sentences, words and notions from his books that move me enough that I don't want to forget them. Each character somehow shadows my own life - periodically reminding me of myself, those I love and even, sometimes, those I hate. Oddly enough, Jim Harrison's writing is like the thing he writes about so often, a steady river with a constant flow. I have heard and read a fair amount of negative reactions to his storytelling. Simplistic. Sexist. Perverted. When writing about a man who is thinking about/dreaming about/looking at a woman, Harrison doesn't shy away from overt sexuality and even, it's true, objectification. My argument is this - men are perverts (God love them) and to offer the inner monologue of a middle aged man confronted with a young woman in a short skirt without a little salaciousness would be dishonest. If anything, Harrison's honesty about men's imperfect and impure appreciation of women (demonstrated most expertly by Brown Dog in the second story, "The Seven Ounce Man") shows just whose side he's on. His telling of the young and exceptional Julip, worthy female star of the first novella "Julip", gives her all of the strength and worth and paints her male counterparts, "the Boys", as 3 middle aged men trying sloppily to rescue their own long-dead youths by possessing this powerful and certainly un-possessable 21-year old feminine force. The last story, "The Beige Dolorosa", is a calm portrait of a middle aged man in an uncomfortable but, ultimately, necessary transition and discovery of himself. This story is an examination of nature and literature woven into the foreground of a weak-kneed but wonderful Midwestern professor forced through exigent circumstances to spend his 50's on a cattle ranch in the wilds of Arizona. Harrison's books offer extraordinary humor, nature, desperation, discomfort and personal discovery in equal measure and this collection is one of his best.

This collection of novellas by acclaimed poet and novelist Jim Harrison is to savor. He once said, "Art should be a process of discovery, or it's boring." Reading Julip is an engrossing emotional discovery as we share the lives of characters that only this author can create. Julip, the title piece in this presentation of three stories is about an irrepressible 21-year-old whose name is "the mixture of a flower and a drink." Apt description that. Julip tries to convince her brother to say he is insane so that he might be released from prison. Brother Bobby is there for shooting (not fatally) Julip's three wealthy boyfriends. In The Seven-Ounce Man another appearance is made by one of Harrison's familiar characters, Brown Dog. Many met Brown Dog, a rapscallion and ex-Bible student who lives in Michigan's Peninsula, in The Woman Lit By Fireflies. This incarnation finds Brown Dog the victim of Native American activists. B.D. enjoys the simple life - he reads Popular Mechanics and likes pork and beans. The Beige Dolorosa, the title of the third story, is the name that a defrocked academic, Phillip Caulkins, has given to a bird, one bird among the 700 North American varieties he has decided to rename. Caulkins's daughter comes to his rescue and deports him to Arizona, where he becomes interested in ranch life and being a cowboy. As always, Harrison's prose is entertaining and humorous. He is an original. - Gail Cooke

read these 3 novellas on plane from New Zealand to Jakarta. Not much business to be had in Indonesia but the book made the trip worthwhile. A new writer for me and I was impressed with the ironic, slightly weary style and with the gentle humour - not taking itself too seriously. Highly recommended.

Not the best by Mr. Harrison, but enjoyable. The 7 Ounce Man is especially funny. I liked all of his characters and they even reminded me of a few people I know. Read "The Woman Lit by Fireflies", it's one of my favorites.