I have a huge reading habit. I spend a LOT of time at libraries when I can’t afford to buy books, and I read at a rate of about a book a day.

This week I’ve been reading True North by Jim Harrison.

I have only ever read one other book by Jim Harrison, and that was “the Road Home”.

I have spent the week reading this book, and I’m not exactly sure why.
The whole book is written in first person by a relentlessly self absorbed fool of a boy/man who never stops wondering how to not fuck up his own life to LIVE his own life.

Harrison has a way of telling you the story that’s a bit infuriating and at the same time, sucks you in, hard. He tells you the end of the story, and then backs up to tell you the meat of the story, and after a while, you don’t mind so much.

I’m not exactly sure what makes True North resonate so well with me, if it’s the setting, (the narrator spends most of his time in the wilderness fishing or reading) if it’s the slow descent into madness of the narrator, or if it’s the description of the landscape, which, if you have any personal experience with the UP you can practically sit on every stump he describes. I read so much, such a large volume of work, that I often don’t take the time to enjoy it; this book was different, I kept putting it down when I was not tired nor tired of reading, I had to stop and absorb the things I’d read.

I don’t know if I’d personally reccomend this book, because I think it might not be to most people’s taste. Me, I liked it enough that I’ll try to find a first edition.
I will re-read it again and again. I will go back and read all of Harrison’s work, just to see if this was a fluke or if he’s always like this, and I will be pleased if he is.