The River Swimmer: Novellas

Jim Harrison's latest collection of two novellas is Harrison at his most memorable: two men, one young and one older, confronting lost and new love, possibilities, endings, and the encroachment of civilization on nature. In The Land of Unlikeness, Clive, a failed artist, divorced and grappling with aging, returns to his Michigan family's farmhouse to spell his sister's caregiving of their mother for a month. The return to familiar ground provides a groundswell of upheaval in Clive's 20-years long life patterns. In The River Swimmer, Thad, an Upper Peninsula island farm boy struggles to cope with life out of the water, and coming of age on dry land. The River Swimmer is a porrait of two striking and richly drawn characters, written with Harrison's wit, and revelatory insight into the human condition.