AUDIOBOOK
About
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. His articles for such magazines as Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Esquire, and Outside in the 1970s 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 readers.
"Devouring Time is a massive achievement, a deep plunge into the life of Jim Harrison whose forty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry line our shelves. Atavistic, inspired, despairing, gluttonous, turbo-charged, and broken-hearted, the gut strings of what drove Harrison are plucked, page by page until his high-wire obsessions, his 'beggar's banquets' of eating, drinking, traveling, and writing finally recede. What lasts are the words."
"Jim Harrison was a mustang that never got corralled, or at least broke out of all the paddocks he found himself in, and Todd Goddard tells the story of this bon vivant, outdoorsman, hellion, and great poet from his ancestors to his end with grace, momentum, generosity, and insight. I was more than glad to go on the journey that was Harrison's life in Devouring Time's narrative, and what a great American life it was, wreckage, glory, gifts, and all."
"Jim Harrison is and always will be one of my great heroes. He emerges from Todd Goddard's splendid Devouring Time in vivid technicolor, and indeed shadow, as if he could walk off the page at any moment, sounding out his American yawp. Gracefully rendered and impeccably researched, Goddard intimately charts the free-flowing river that was Harrison's life, its headwaters and tributaries, the glistening shallows and eddies, and the dark charging currents that carved channels through the literary landscape. His timeless poetry and fiction, singular joie de vivre, boundless appetites and intellect, as well as his unerring commitment to wisdom and wildness, resound on every page. One of our most cherished writers, Jim Harrison has landed in the hands of a worthy biographer. An absolute pleasure to read, Devouring Time resonates with me still."
"My friend Jim Harrison always seemed a fiercely untamable subject for a biographer, but I think Devouring Time will stand as a complete and moving portrait. Jim was one of those rare writers whose private life was as adventurous as their works, but only a dogged journalist could have tracked down all the tales. Todd Goddard tells the whole story in a way that Jim would have admired-raw and revealing, yet with a sensitive eye for both the pain and the talent that made Jim one of modern America's most intriguing poets and novelists."
"Jim Harrison lived a big life, and he has
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. His articles for such magazines as Sports Illustrated, Playboy, Esquire, and Outside in the 1970s 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 readers.
"Devouring Time is a massive achievement, a deep plunge into the life of Jim Harrison whose forty books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry line our shelves. Atavistic, inspired, despairing, gluttonous, turbo-charged, and broken-hearted, the gut strings of what drove Harrison are plucked, page by page until his high-wire obsessions, his 'beggar's banquets' of eating, drinking, traveling, and writing finally recede. What lasts are the words."
"Jim Harrison was a mustang that never got corralled, or at least broke out of all the paddocks he found himself in, and Todd Goddard tells the story of this bon vivant, outdoorsman, hellion, and great poet from his ancestors to his end with grace, momentum, generosity, and insight. I was more than glad to go on the journey that was Harrison's life in Devouring Time's narrative, and what a great American life it was, wreckage, glory, gifts, and all."
"Jim Harrison is and always will be one of my great heroes. He emerges from Todd Goddard's splendid Devouring Time in vivid technicolor, and indeed shadow, as if he could walk off the page at any moment, sounding out his American yawp. Gracefully rendered and impeccably researched, Goddard intimately charts the free-flowing river that was Harrison's life, its headwaters and tributaries, the glistening shallows and eddies, and the dark charging currents that carved channels through the literary landscape. His timeless poetry and fiction, singular joie de vivre, boundless appetites and intellect, as well as his unerring commitment to wisdom and wildness, resound on every page. One of our most cherished writers, Jim Harrison has landed in the hands of a worthy biographer. An absolute pleasure to read, Devouring Time resonates with me still."
"My friend Jim Harrison always seemed a fiercely untamable subject for a biographer, but I think Devouring Time will stand as a complete and moving portrait. Jim was one of those rare writers whose private life was as adventurous as their works, but only a dogged journalist could have tracked down all the tales. Todd Goddard tells the whole story in a way that Jim would have admired-raw and revealing, yet with a sensitive eye for both the pain and the talent that made Jim one of modern America's most intriguing poets and novelists."
"Jim Harrison lived a big life, and he has