Off to the Side: A Memoir

Jim Harrison passes on reflections on his life to readers of Off to the Side. I don't think he tries to accomplish any goals of self revelation or sequential order in this book. He merely shares episodes of his life and work, as well as thoughts on a wide range of topics like strippers, religion, nature, literature and Hollywood. Harrison could write a description of a coke bottle and make it eloquent and enjoyable to read. His writing skill and literary talents are at the top of the bar, so readers will appreciate even his writing about day-to-day events. Harrison writes in-depthly about his childhood and early family life, but then departs from writing much about his adult family to share more about his Hollywood interactions. Similarly, he shares early inspiration by literary giants and unknowns, then later in the book delves into episodes with drinking buddies and Hollywood cronies. This book is at its best when Harrison is revealing significant stories about family, nature and literature. It devolves as he spends considerable pages repeating the frustrating stories of trying to turn novels and novellas into successful screenplays. He drops many big names but rarely reveals much about them. It seems like Harrison writes some of this book to cater to what he thinks readers will want to read about like Hollywood and drinking in Key West with Jimmy Buffet, but the real richness is in Harrison's tales of writing and trying to make it as a writer in the solitude of his cabin or small home with a young wife and new baby. He returns again and again to his calling and his passion for writing that sometimes comes to him in dreams and visions. I think the treasure of this book lies in his accounts of the challenges, rewards and heartache of responding to the deep call to write. I would like to know after reading this book about the author's family life as a husband and father while he was continually off on hunting, fishing or Hollywood endeavours. Did the wife and kids come or were they content to let him go for months at a time each year? These questions may have to wait for answers from a biography of Harrison written by someone else. For now, Off to the Side serves as an enjoyable and at times revealing and enlightening memoir of a called and committed author who did the work required to bring his gift to life. Shakespeare On Spirituality: Life-Changing Wisdom from Shakespeare's Plays

Jim Harrison, Off to the Side: a Memoir Atlantic Monthly Press reviewed by Sean Aden Lovelace Jim Harrison has often said he's horrible at titles. I'm not sure that's true (excluding his novel SunDog, neither of sun or dog, and possibly A Good Day to Die, which smacks of Elmore Leonard, or one of Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns), but then again few writers have had such literary prolificacy (28 volumes and counting), and thus an ongoing need for titles. And so what of Harrison's 2002 memoir, Off to the Side? I suppose it depends on your definition of title. Is it a key to a door, or the door itself, opening into the rooms and hallways of a writer's memory? Or more a structural device, a textual map, guiding us along? Or is it simply a disarming introduction, a gesture of the hand, an invitation to pull up a chair and gather round the fire, to sit right by the storyteller-right off to the side. I'd say the answer is yes. The book does indeed begin with memory, section one, "Early Life," a brief review of parental courting, family life, Harrison's youthful days of fishing and hunting and scraping by in rural Michigan, and though admittedly a life of poverty- "catsup sandwiches" and "plates of beans"-never a hint of self-pity. Primarily through lively imagery and lyrical description (Harrison is also an accomplished poet), the author expresses a certain calm and simplicity in a caring family and rural environs. He writes of waking in the morning: "There had been a little rain in the night and I could smell the damp garden, the strong winey smell of the grape arbor, the bacon grease from the kitchen below." In short, his childhood embodies the poetic idyll, and Harrison never takes for granted this fortunate reality. Yet, like childhood, Harrison's Eden quickly gives way to the pain of knowledge, and "Early Life" shifts in tone and mood. Off to the Side becomes a title of the artist's first identity as outsider, and this alienation is no garden variety adolescent angst-Harrison's abstract loss and longing can be traced to a concrete source. At age seven the author is partially blinded when a playmate jabs a glass bottle into his left eye, permanently disabling him. (Interestingly, the writer James Thurber also suffered a childhood blinding in one eye, and was likewise a prolific and imaginative writer.) Harrison must now adjust, not only physically, but mentally and emotionally as well. His perceptions change; his life now a type of inward synesthesia: "You have the idea you can actually hear color." Later, Harrison spends the money he has saved for months-$1200 earned at the rate of $1.50 per hour-on a quack physician who promises to repair his eyesight. Harrison's eyesight is not repaired; in fact, he is totally blinded for a time, as he feels a "hot nail in my eyeball." To put it plainly, he feels foolish, hopeless, and alone. He yearns for escape, "for the places you read about..." And so he leaves his home, and childhood, behind. Secti

When I finished this book, I felt much like the other reviewers. I thought the first half was great, and it finished strong in the very end, but my perception of Harrison was tarnished as one Hollywood name after another was trotted out during the screenplay writing phase. It was as if, caught within a pseudo-fame, he had to ensure his readers (or moreso himself) that he was in the game, whether we knew it or not. Then, as the book settled in a bit, I began to realize that this was probably a relatively candid look at the man's professional life (I don't know him - I'm only guessing). True to his persona, he didn't fall into politically correct pressure - this time by not being modest about who he knows. Maybe this reveals just another one of his addicitons. The only difference is that the other addictions he talks about have a mythological romance to them, evoking endearment in job-shackled readers and probably selling a lot of books for him. This particular vice repels people. Nevertheless, whether he intended it or not, I felt the book revealed a man constantly torn between the seduction of Hollywood's powerful, fast pace and his cheap cars and favorite dogs rolling out to a fishing spot before hitting the local northern Michigan watering hole. I can relate. His language is, as always, poetically beautiful and you can truly feel the passion of somebody who seems fascinated by the simple fact that he's alive. Out of morbid curiosity, I would have liked to understand more how he maintained his family life with so much wild and carefree excess. But, then again, that's really none of my business.

I started reading Jim Harrison in the seventies. I even liked the early books he doesn't. I read his poetry and kept track of his work up through Off to the Side. I subscribe to Esquire and Men's Journal so I read many of the "Raw and the Cooked" pieces and saw early printings of various novellas. (I read "Legends" in Esquire in one sitting at my kitchen table. Hey, I was born poor too) This is some context for my remarks. Who does one write a memoir for? I guess my hope is that a memoir by an author is for his readers. If you are hoping for this, you'll be disappointed. It seems this memoir was for Harrison and probably his family and a few close friends listed toward the end. As for people who have been reading his work, maybe we're just better off reading his work. When a writer writes a memoir, I am interested in understanding what he/she reads and how he/she reads. Harrison mentions a number of writers but he doesn't say much about what he got from them (except near the end when he reveals a bit of what Notes From the Underground meant for him). I am interested in how events shaped writing and thinking. What we get are anecdotes. Harrison knew many writers who I like to read but we learn nothing of interest through his encounters. Ultimately, this memoir seems to me self absorbed. As if it were time to do the "memoir" thing. I guess I was naïve enough to think that writers consider their readers, but I don't think Harrison knows anything about his readers except as schmucks who go to his book signings that he was trying mightily to get out of. (I've never been to a book signing.) Is Off to the Side entertaining? Yes. Is it well written in Harrison's distinctive voice? Yes. Did Harrison have a life interesting enough to write about? Yes. Do we learn anything about his writing or reading or his take on other writers and their ideas? No. The rating is higher than it probably should be, but like Harrison, I hate to admit that something I spent time on reading wasn't worth my time.

I remember walking into the Crawford County library in Grayling, Michigan over thirty years ago and reading a poem by Jim Harrison, thinking that he had completely restructured the way I thought about language. That began a thirty year obsession with Harrison and his work, especially the poems which I read almost daily.He has illuminated my own writing career, such as it is. When I thought I was paying attention to the natural world, his work would remind me that I truly wasn't as perceptive as I imagined. Now, his interior life, which has always ridden close to the surface of his work, has been exhaustively mined and offered up to those of us who use Harrison's work as one might use a compass. For me OFF TO THE SIDE is like getting a topographic map of a heart I have long admired. Poet, shaman, Zen fool in the tradition of Ikkyu, Harrison is the best antidote to a world ever-filling with greed, stupidity and blindness.