Overlooking Jim Harrison

By Tim Mulherin

Sun contributor

I was working late at my school administrator job on Monday, March 28, 2016, when my wife, Janet, called me. “When will you be home?”

“Soon, honey,” I answered while continuing to type an email. This was our regular early evening conversation, Monday through Friday.

This wasn’t: “Did you hear that Jim Harrison died?” She now had my undivided attention.

“What? When?”

“Saturday. I just heard about it on NPR. I know how much you love his writing and wanted to be sure you knew. I’m so sorry.”

I immediately closed up shop and drove home. Once there, I searched online for more details and came across a Facebook post by one of Harrison’s friends, writer and journalist Philip Caputo. He had discovered the lifeless Harrison at his winter home in Patagonia, Arizona. “He died a poet’s death,” Caputo recounted, “literally with a pen in his hand, while writing a new poem.”

I’m an English major from way back when. Of course, there are many writers whose work I cherish. Yet when Janet informed me about Harrison, it was a gut punch. To me, he was a giant.

For many years, however, this wasn’t the case. Back in the ’80s, I would occasionally read Harrison’s food column in Esquire magazine, “The Raw and the Cooked,” in which he showed his flair for writing as a wild game and fine wine gourmand. However, I had never sampled his novellas, novels, or poetry. Walk into any northern Michigan bookstore, and you’ll see oodles of his titles on hand, often outnumbering those of most any other writer. If Jim Harrison is that popular, I would think to myself, I’ll pass, my literary conceit directing me elsewhere.

Yet one rainy October day, about a decade ago while visiting Horizon Books in downtown Traverse City, I surrendered to my admittedly nagging curiosity about Harrison’s work and purchased The Woman Lit by Fireflies, one of his novella collections. That evening, I began reading the first novella, “Brown Dog.” It only took a few pages for me to become a fan of BD, the protagonist who would appear repeatedly in novellas to come as one of Harrison’s central characters. The middle-aged half Finn/half Michigan Chippewa Indian lives by impulse, finds utter joy in trout fishing and six packs of cheap beer, is easily entranced by the opposite sex, and has a nonnegotiable moral compass. For this former warhorse of the white-collar workplace, who would occasionally daydream from his desk of casting for trout in a crystalline northern Michigan river, Brown Dog’s exploits gave me vital comic relief.

Since that introduction to Harrison’s work, I’ve read all but one of his 42 books, Letters to Yesenin (it’s on the list). I’ve reread several, too. I shudder to think that my condescension almost caused me to miss out on this born-and-bred northern Michigander’s literary brilliance.

In spring of 2022, I was conducting research for a nonfiction book project about the profound changes impacting the Grand Traverse region. Without any prompting, several of my interviewees brought up Jim Harrison, including Leelanau Fruit Company owner Glenn LaCross, Chateau Fontaine winery owner Dan Matthies, and Mawby winery founder Larry Mawby. They had known the late writer and shared some touching and amusing private anecdotes. When I mentioned my fondness for Harrison’s writing, to a man they suggested I contact Joyce Harrington Bahle, Harrison’s career-long transcriptionist, business manager, and dear friend.

We arranged to meet at Bahle’s hilltop home near Suttons Bay on an early June Saturday afternoon. As I parked, a small pack of good-natured Labrador retrievers heralded my presence. Bahle and I sat at a patio table, the dogs circulating among us for a head scratch or back pat. Soon it began to rain, and we relocated our get-acquainted conversation indoors. I told her about my research, about my admiration of Harrison’s work, and namedropped the folks who encouraged me to meet her. Although I had never met Harrison in person, spending an afternoon with Bahle — who was so integral to his literary success – was a momentous occasion for me.

During our wide-ranging discussion, she spoke of the Bahle family’s multi-generational history in Leelanau County, of the county’s quirky politics and proud regionalism. We talked about the influence of the pandemic-inspired wave of newcomers on local culture, how folkways and “progress” sometimes clash and otherwise evolve. We shared our mutual reverence for nature and our concern for preserving the ecological well-being of the region as it continues to attract greater numbers of visitors and relocators. Throughout the afternoon, we would occasionally pause to admire the Baltimore orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks, and ruby-throated hummingbirds frequenting her bank of birdfeeders, as well as a pileated woodpecker feasting on a suet cake. And per the purpose of our meeting, Bahle shed light on her working and personal relationship with one of northern Michigan’s most distinct literary voices and distinguished American man of letters.

As the Labs slept soundly at our feet, she also graciously inquired about my own writing, listening attentively to the story of how I came to resume a long-postponed writing career. She noted, “Jim always said that if you have fire in your hair and you can’t put it out, you go with it.” Although I’m cue-ball bald these days, upon hearing that, I felt validated, as if Harrison was speaking directly to me through his trusted assistant.

Of course, those who are well-versed in Harrison’s work are often familiar with Bahle’s essential role. Decidedly old school, he would write daily in longhand on a legal pad then fax it to her for transcription. “Jim was the last of his kind of writer,” she says. “He didn’t want to be out in the world; he wanted to be out in the woods.”

Me too. I sometimes only half-joke that people are overrated. Unnerved by the chaotic ways of the so-called civilized world, I’m able to clear my head whenever I meander a Northwoods path; spend a day at a northern Michigan stream pursuing the wily, gorgeous, and delectable rainbow, brown, and brook trout; or lie back on the shore of Lake Michigan to watch the Milky Way materialize and luck into meteors streaking across the dark sky.

Harrison and his wife, Linda, moved away from his beloved Leelanau County in 2002, wintering in Arizona and staying in Montana during the warmer months. Bahle said, “When he left here, he hated Leelanau County. He thought it was getting too commercial, too many people were coming in…and the real fabric of Leelanau County was changing.” Yet Harrison, who owned a secluded cabin in the Upper Peninsula for 25 years as a writing retreat, admitted that there are plenty of places throughout northern Michigan where one can find solitude. Such prized spots I tend to keep to myself. I don’t want to rob anyone of the joy of discovery by disclosing mine.

When our time together was through, I commented that Harrison has a lingering presence in Leelanau County. “It’s really true,” Bahle agreed. Since his death, there has been a “surge of interest” in his writing, she observed. Still, I’m always surprised by the well-read people I meet in the region and throughout the Midwest who have not experienced his writing. Fate somehow intervened on my behalf, and northern Michigan’s enchantment has only intensified for me thanks to Harrison’s influence.

Granted, Harrison’s writing isn’t for everyone. But it can become an acquired taste. When purchasing The English Major at Horizon Books a few years ago, I made conversation with the clerk, a friendly woman with the mien of a retired teacher or librarian. I confessed that “I ignored this guy for so long. And now I can’t get enough of his writing.” While ringing up my purchase, she peered over her eyeglasses and said, “Well, I used to think he was too much of a sexist for my tastes. Though in his later works, he’s really quite amusing and insightful; he has a wonderful way with words, don’t you think?” If reading The English Major for the third time now is any indication…

Bahle told me about a speaking invitation she received from a women’s group in Traverse City some years ago. The topic? What it was like to work with Jim Harrison. “Wow, this is going to be uncomfortable,” she recalls thinking about the request. Nevertheless, Bahle agreed to give the talk. “So I said, ‘You know, I’m not here to defend Jim Harrison. Either you like Jim or you really dislike him.’ And women either like him or they really dislike him.” She went on, “‘All I can say is, his work stands for itself, and the writer is not always the fictional character in the book.’” In his companion novels Dalva and The Road Home, the narrative point of view of several female characters should eliminate any question of his respect for and understanding of women. Indeed, the lavish critical praise they received is well deserved.

So, if you call northern Michigan home or have visited and came away deeply moved by its outdoor magnificence, and if you delight in writers with a talent for portraying life’s absurdities in a poignant, laugh-out-loud style, then you really should treat yourself to a special reading experience. Your favorite Up North independent bookstore can help you get started. And Jim Harrison will take it from there.