Just Before Dark Pa

A must have for anyone who enjoys cooking and knows how to read.

I own almost every Jim Harrison story collection and I haven't found a dud tale in any of them. Whether his subject is Native American malaise or the bored-with-everything sex lives of Ivy League wives and ex-wives...he tackles them with heart, humor, and an almost invisible touch of the Author's Voice. To call him a Naturalist isn't quite enough. Think Thoreau, only re-incarnated in Bukowski's body. So we all know his fiction is amazing...but this non-fiction collection is a revelation! Here and there I've come across his magazine pieces and they alone merit the cover price of whatever mag they're in. But to have all these in one sleek, trade-paperback edition is priceless. Life is hard and full of boredom and too much work. And none of us have time to experience all that we wish we could...Enter: Just Before Dark by Jim Harrison. Everything becomes an adventure...eating, reading, traveling, culture, art, America, nature...it's all there and rendered with that same invisible touch. And each piece is short enough to be digested in one sitting. Do yourself a big favor and pick this one up. Go about your busy day and grab just fifteen minutes or so and let Harrison bring the great big world to you.

Jim Harrison is an inspiration - in his damn-the-torpedos approach to life and his ability to stand back and look at it with clear eyes. Every page or so I stop to marvel at an idea or phrase. I laugh and weep. READ THIS BOOK! This man will change you, challenge you and inspire you.

These reviews must be to hard for the authors to read. The only easy ones would the indifferent reviews since the negative ones are upsetting and the great ones are embarrassing. This review is the latter. Being Fifty it's hard to have any heroes these days, especially living heroes but, Jim Harrison fit's the bill. My other hero Neil Welliver, the painter, reminds me so much of Harrison in his individual thinking, direct approach, outspokeness and belief in their own vision. Descartes could have said "If you don't think for yourself, you don't exist" but this would have been a rather hard line for Descartes at the time( the Pope and all). Harrison(not too concerned about the Pope) does take that hard line in all his work and, like Welliver, has created individual, strongly felt and clearly defined worlds and opinions. These worlds help the viewer or the reader find strength, direction and inspiration to work on worlds of there own.

These reviews must be to hard for the authors to read. The only easy ones would the indifferent reviews since the negative ones are upsetting and the great ones are embarrassing. This review is the latter. Being Fifty it's hard to have any heroes these days, especially living heroes but, Jim Harrison fit's the bill. My other hero Neil Welliver, the painter, reminds me so much of Harrison in his individual thinking, direct approach, outspokeness and belief in their own vision. Descartes could have said "If you don't think for yourself, you don't exist" but this would have been a rather hard line for Descartes at the time( the Pope and all). Harrison(not too concerned about the Pope) does take that hard line in all his work and, like Welliver, has created individual, strongly felt and clearly defined worlds and opinions. These worlds help the viewer or the reader find strength, direction and inspiration to work on worlds of their own.

Harrison's Just Before Dark sets itself apart from other works of non-fiction and leaves the reader astonished. Out on the landscape of Hemingway's A Movable Feast, Steinbeck's Travels With Charlie, and Faulkner's Go Down Moses; Harrison has brought forth his expedient andric style in this collection of indelible truths. Divided into Food, Travel & Sport, and Literary Matters the book is saturated with wisdom, humor, and insight into every subject from, bird hunting with a French Count, to bar pool, to Ernest Hemingway, to Zen writings. Whether it's sharing with the reader travel tips through America's dirt roads or showing us the complex simplicity in a walk at dusk, Harrison gives the reader an escape that is based in reality yet woven in the fantastic. In my personal copy stars or markings may appear next to titles or lines. By doing this I realize that I am inevitably suggesting that one story transcends another and therefore is somehow healthier than the rest but no assumption could be more crooked. My tattered, marked, and exhausted copy sits as reminder that some books are truly priceless.