Reviewed:
Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life by Todd Goddard (Blackstone, 2025)
It’s been ten years since Jim Harrison died of heart failure in his casita by Sonoita Creek. The writer, a winter resident here for 24 years, authored 21 books of fiction and 14 books of poetry as well as magazine articles and screenplays. The man wrote a lot, and lived a lot.
The title of this new biography is a quote from Shakespeare and an appropriate choice for a man with a big appetite for life—a lot like Shakespeare’s Falstaff.
Birding, hiking and hunting were Harrison’s favored pastimes in Patagonia. It was an added bonus that his friend, fellow writer and hunter, Phil Caputo, wintered in town.
Harrison spent long hours writing, always in long hand, and he loved the sound of the creek. He appeared at the bar at the Wagon Wheel most afternoons, where he sometimes drank with friends. As the years passed, his health deteriorated precipitously and his hunting and hiking were curtailed. The Wagon Wheel continued to be a predictable end to his working day.
Word of his death and the circumstances (fell to the floor while writing a poem and smoking a cigarette) were quickly reported across town. Most people knew he was a well-known writer, but few realized the extent of his life’s work or the range of his vices and accomplishments.
Capturing Jim Harrison’s remarkable life in a biography took three years. Todd Goddard, who undertook this job, holds a law degree and a doctorate in literary studies. He is an associate professor of literary studies at Utah Valley University, and has always admired Harrison’s work. Not many people aspire to write biographies. It’s a lot of work, and this subject’s life was complex, to say the least.
Seven years after Harrison’s death, Goddard approached the Harrison family, and they agreed to work with him. Harrison’s two daughters gave him more than 300 boxes of related materials: endless correspondence, manuscripts, invitations, awards, notes, clippings, menus, etc.
On top of that, Goddard interviewed countless friends and associates, read through all the material, and synthesized a complicated life into a very readable, fact-filled and organized book, starting with Harrison’s Scandinavian heritage and his boyhood in rural Michigan.
The reader learns about the horrific accident when “Little Jimmy” lost his left eye, and how his boyhood spent fishing, hunting and exploring the forested countryside of rural Michigan was engraved on his spirit. Harrison was not much of a student. He flunked out of graduate school in 1962, disdaining academia, but determined to become a published poet.
Then the event that would shape Harrison’s life took place in 1962 when his beloved sister and his father were killed by a drunk driver in a highway accident. Harrison had delayed their departure, trying to decide whether to go with them, and always felt responsible for the tragedy. He is quoted as saying that this event forced him to write seriously. “If people die,” he said, “you’d better get down to business.”
There are many themes that ran through Harrison’s life. Goddard tugs away at these strands with each turn of the page. There are the countless friends (famous and everyday—all interesting), a close family, a literary support system of editors and publishers, extensive travel, and this leads, of course, to Harrison’s favorite things: food, alcohol, hunting, fishing and women. He blurred the line between gourmand and gourmet, enologist and alcoholic, loving husband and scoundrel.
Capturing Harrison’s talent, personality, appetites and beliefs must have been daunting at times. Goddard has done an outstanding job. It is interesting how few labels he applies to his subject. It would be easy to describe Jim Harrison as manic depressive, alcoholic, hedonistic or other cultural, psychological terms we are inclined to overuse. Those descriptors would have been far too simple and misleading. Jim Harrison was often depressed, frequently manic, and he certainly enjoyed his alcohol, but he was a complicated, strangely private, immensely curious, appreciative and enthusiastic human being. He was also—if you take the time to read his writing, which I highly recommend—a masterful storyteller, a unique and readable poet, and a writer who made the novella form his own.
Goddard tells us that when Harrison made money (mostly in Hollywood), he quickly spent it. For years he neglected to pay his taxes, and finally hired a manager to keep track of his increasingly complicated life.
It is hard to believe that Harrison lived as long as he did with all that he devoured. As an adult, he suffered from a variety of ailments mostly brought on by his lifestyle. Over the years, Goddard figures, he was diagnosed with spondylolisthesis, spinal stenosis, diabetes, neuralgia, shingles and depression. But always there was the drive to keep traveling and writing and drinking—to smoke, eat rich food and hunt and fish and keep his friends and family close. He devoured life. And time.
The cover of “Devouring Time” will help sell the book, for it will stand out on bookstore shelves. It is a commanding photo of Harrison’s broad, weatherbeaten face. His scarred left eye does not look back. Then you take in his whiskers and unbarbered hair, the burning cigarette hanging from his mouth and the arthritic hand that strokes his scraggly beard. In a recent interview, Goddard said that there was some question about using the photograph on the cover, but he felt strongly that it belonged there.
The last 100 pages of this 518-page book contain acknowledgments and notes. These are helpful, but don’t do enough to guide the reader through this complicated life. A glossary of names (there are so many) with a reminder of how they fit into Harrison’s life would have been helpful.
That complaint aside, Goddard’s prose style, humanity, insight, and perseverance make this a full and fascinating biography.
I would add that if you have not read much of Jim Harrison’s work, now is a good time to become better acquainted.