Western Book Roundup

Jim Harrison’s Montana Digs & How Thornton Wilder Got His Groove Back

By Jenny Shank, 7-08-09

The Wall Street Journal ran a feature yesterday about the Paradise Valley farmhouse of writer Jim Harrison, which he and his wife purchased “for about $425,000 seven years ago.” Alexandra Alter writes that the valley near Livingston is packed with writers--"novelists Thomas McGuane and Walter Kirn and science writer David Quammen live in the area.”

Among other tidbits: “The living room has a wood burning stove and hobbit-like door that once opened onto a woodpile—which the Harrisons cleared away so that it wouldn’t serve as a den for rattlesnakes.” In Alter’s description of Harrison, he sounds a little hobbit-like: “a pot-bellied 71-year-old with a tanned, creased face, bushy white goatee, wild eyebrows and long earlobes.”

Harrison thoroughly enjoys himself in his home, writing, eating, drinking, and hosting guests.  Alter notes that Harrison’s friend, chef Mario Batali, visited last year and “they feasted for days,” packing away such dishes as “robiola cheese ravioli with duck ragu” and “veal chops Modenese.”

In the accompanying slideshow, Harrison’s home looks like my kind of place, with bookshelves everywhere, full of books that look like they actually get read, a flourishing garden, and a writing desk facing a blank wall.

In the July issue of Smithsonian Magazine, Tom Miller tells the diverting story of how Thornton Wilder (the author of Our Town and The Bridge of San Luis Rey) ventured to Douglas, Arizona because he was weary of the social obligations and attention his many accomplishments had brought him.  (This detail is quaint—how many contemporary writers suffer this sort of fame-induced ennui?  I mean, besides me.) Miller writes that Wilder craved “solitude without loneliness.”

“Shortly after noon on May 20, 1962, Wilder backed his five-year-old blue Thunderbird convertible out of the driveway of his Connecticut home and lighted out for the Great Southwest. After ten days on the road and almost 2,500 miles, the Thunderbird broke down on U.S. Highway 80, just east of Douglas, Arizona, a town of some 12,000 on the Mexican border about 120 miles southeast of Tucson.”

Wilder ended up staying in Arizona for a year and a half.  In short, Wilder got his groove back there, beginning to write a novel “after 15 years writing exclusively for the stage.” That novel became The Eighth Day, which won the National Book Award when it was published in 1967.

This got me thinking about other writers who’ve gone to the southwest to rejuvenate.  D.H. Lawrence is one—when I’m in Taos, I enjoy staying at the Laughing Horse Inn, which once was the residence of Spud Johnson, publisher of Laughing Horse magazine.  He hosted his friend D.H. Lawrence during his visits there.  Henry Shukman detailed Lawrence’s time in the Southwest for the New York Times in 2006.

And then there’s Willa Cather, whom D.H. Lawrence and his wife invited to visit their ranch, according to this New York Times article by Herbert Mitgang.  Cather visited New Mexico several times, and set an important portion of 1925’s The Professor’s House and all of 1927’s Death Comes for the Archbishop there.

In an unrelated matter, the people have spoken: One Book, One Denver has announced that this year’s selection will be To Kill A Mockingbird.  Yawn.  It’s a great book, and I loved it just like everybody else eons ago when I first read it.  But how many people are going to get excited enough to dust off their old copies of it and attend the public events to discuss it?  Maybe those people who didn’t get enough of that in ninth grade? 

Well, you did it to yourselves, Denver--as I mentioned a few weeks ago, people were invited to chose from among 27 pre-selected books.  How many people voted?  “Almost 2,000,” according to a City of Denver press release.

The rest of the press release is kind of fun.  I like this part: “The combined program will officially launch September 1 and run through October. During that time, copies of To Kill a Mockingbird will be available for check-out at all Denver Public Library branches and sold in local bookstores.” Until then, as usual, it will be impossible to find a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird in libraries and bookstores.  Except on those big To Kill a Mockingbird-laden tables they have for summer reading assignments and several shelves in the “L” section.

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