The Search for the Genuine

The first general nonfiction title in thirty years from a giant of American letters, The Search for the Genuine is a sparkling, definitive collection of Jim Harrison's essays and journalism--some never before published

New York Times-bestselling author Jim Harrison (1937-2016) was a writer

with a poet's economy of style and a trencherman's appetites. Praised as a

"national treasure" (Chicago Tribune) and published in twenty-seven languages, he was one of

this country's most beloved and critically acclaimed authors. Best known for

his poetry and fiction such as Legends of the

Fall, Dalva, and Returning

to Earth, Harrison was also a prolific

nonfiction writer, with columns running in Sports

Illustrated and Esquire,

and work in Outside, Field & Stream, and others. The first collection of Harrison's general

nonfiction in thirty years, The

Search for the Genuine is a

sparkling, definitive volume of essays and journalism--from the near-classic to

the never-published.

With his trademark ribald humor,

compassion, and full-throated zest for life, The

Search for the Genuine pays

tribute to writers from Bukowski to Neruda to Peter Matthiessen, and examines

the distance between literary reputation and the work itself; he attains

something like satori in the field hunting grouse; he reports on Yellowstone

for the park's hundredth anniversary, when he was merely a tourist to the part

of Montana he would eventually call home; he takes to the open sea in pursuit

of roosterfish, marlin, tarpon, and, once, to observe a scientific mission

tagging sharks; he delivers a heartbreaking essay on life--and, for those

attempting to cross in the ever-more dangerous gaps, death--on the US-Mexico

border. Always he comes back to the spirit and to connection with the natural

world and the people who sustained him; throughout the book his feeling for the

American landscape rings out.

Lovingly introduced by acclaimed

novelist, poet, and essayist Luis Alberto Urrea, The Search for the Genuine is a feast that captures a lifetime of reading, writing,

and living to the fullest, from a true "American original" (San Francisco Chronicle).