'Off to the Side', a memoir by Jim Harrison

Jim Harrison has already lived a full and interesting life, however you decide to measure it. An early interest in hitch-hiking to strange American cities and a desire to make a success of life in New York City in the 1950s meant that by the time he had left his teens he had already racked up enough anecdotes to keep most people happy. Now approaching eighty, he does not seem to have any intention of stopping.

This book is subtitled ‘a memoir’, which is short-hand for a non-chronological effort, unbound by the usual rules of autobiography. It is apparent from the beginning that an autobiography was possible, but the author’s mind pings off in so many directions that he could not marshal his thoughts into a logical order. It is as if he really couldn’t be bothered with the effort of ordering things properly, because there is still so much fun to be had somewhere else. The book is fragmentary and lacks any purpose as a result.

It is a shame because the material that he has to work with is rich. He has been a poet, university teacher, novelist, short story writer, screen writer and Hollywood darling. He has mixed in illustrious circles, and his natural modesty is such that he spends most of the book apologising for his success. The most annoying thing is that a pearl of great insight is always just around the corner. He lived through the sixties on campuses around the USA – but no great conclusion is apparent. He spent time with a range of great and good writers, including Auden and Ginsberg, but the reader is left equally in the dark as to what they were like and what he learned. He has compartmentalised his life to allow for long periods of time in wilderness, but no great satori emerges from all the brooding. I kept turning the pages in the hope that his reflections on his later life would coalesce to form some wisdom, but was disappointed to find that all he had to share was a series of anecdotes about the Hollywood glitterati of the 1970s.

Harrison is a man’s man. He hunts, he shoots, he fishes, and he enjoys French red wine. He suffers from gout because of his love of eating game. He enjoys watching strippers. He has travelled extensively, and is proud of the connections that he has made in Europe, which is uncommon for American writers of his generation. He is unapologetic when describing his loves, which many would call vices. But he does describe and explain, and is honest when he admits that he knows the foolishness of some of his favourite pastimes, and how much like an overgrown schoolboy he must have appeared on many occasions.

The main hole in this book is that he has been sustained through all his adventures by his wife, and she barely gets a mention. She comes across as a two dimensional figure, when in reality she must have had the patience of a saint to support him through all his wanderings. He was good friends with Jack Nicholson, if any proof was needed.

So Harrison paints his life with a broad brush – big wide strokes of colour, but not a lot of detail around the edges. The review quote on the front from the New York Times Book Review calls it ‘a sprawling, impressionistic memoir’. I think it was meant as a complement, but on reading it is a disappointment to discover that the description is entirely correct.