Jim Harrison Critical Essay | Critical Review by Jonis Agee

Critical Review by Jonis Agee

SOURCE: “The Macho Chronicles,” in New York Times Book Review, May 22, 1994, p. 41.

In the following review, Agee describes the three novellas contained in Julip and the prevalent themes that the stories share.

More than any other writer today, Jim Harrison has been saddled by the critics with Hemingway's ghost. While it is true that Mr. Harrison's best work depicts, as did Hemingway's, individuals facing the uncertainty of the future with sheer will in a natural setting, his new collection of novellas, Julip, recasts such myths of male initiation and redemption. Finally, Mr. Harrison has exorcised the ghost and, in the process, established himself as a genuinely comic writer.

All three novellas are set in American landscapes traditionally used as testing grounds for men: the fishing waters of the South, the hunting woods of the North and the cattle ranches of the West. But, as Mr. Harrison comically...
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