The English Major: A Novel

Jim Harrison

Grove/Atlantic, Inc., Oct 13, 2009 - Fiction - 272 pages

“It used to be Cliff and Vivian and now it isn’t.” With these words, Jim Harrison begins a riotous, moving novel that sends a sixty-something man, divorced and robbed of his farm by a late-blooming real estate shark of an ex-wife, on a road trip across America. Cliff is armed with a childhood puzzle of the United States and a mission to rename all the states and state birds, the latter of which have been unjustly saddled with white men’s banal monikers up until now. His adventures take him through a whirlwind affair with a former student from his high-school-teacher days twenty-some years before, to a “snake farm” in Arizona owned by an old classmate, and to the high-octane existence of his son, a big-time movie producer who has just bought an apartment over the Presidio in San Francisco. Now in paperback, Jim Harrison’s riotous and moving cross-country novel, The English Major, is the map of a man’s journey into, and out of, himself. It is vintage Harrison—reflective, big-picture American, and replete with wicked wit.

What people are saying

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - gmmartz - LibraryThing

I love Jim Harrison's writing.... he's a modern day Twain, or a northern version of Roy Blount Jr./Dan Jenkins. Not a page passes without a smile on my face, a chuckle, or an outright laugh (which is ...

LibraryThing Review

User Review  - helynrob - LibraryThing

Even though I'm ignoring the point of the novel, after reading this, I want to go on a road trip across some states too. Minus the crazy lover.

Contents

• MICHIGAN: 1
• WISCONSIN: 9
• MINNESOTA: 16
• NORTH DAKOTA: 24
• SOUTH DAKOTA: 32
• NEBRASKA: 39
• NEBRASKA II: 46
• WYOMING: 53
• MONTANA: 60
• MONTANA II: 68
• MONTANA III: 74
• MONTANA IV: 81
• IDAHO: 89
• WASHINGTON NOT DC: 97
• OREGON: 105
• CALIFORNIA: 113
• CALIFORNIA II: 120
• CALIFORNIA III: 128
• CALIFORNIA IV: 136
• CALIFORNIA V: 143
• ARIZONA: 150
• ARIZONA II: 157
• ARIZONA III: 164
• NEW MEXICO: 172
• UTAH: 179
• MONTANA REDUX: 186
• MONTANA REDUX II: 193
• MONTANA REDUX III: 201
• MONTANA REDUX IV: 209
• MONTANA REDUX V: 216
• MONTANA REDUX VI: 224
• MONTANA REDUX VII: 232
• MICHIGAN: 239

About the author

Jim Harrison is the author of over twenty-five books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. The winner of a national Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship, he has had work published in twenty-two languages.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The English Major: A Novel
• Author: Jim Harrison
• Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 2009
• ISBN: 155584829X, 9781555848293
• Length: 272 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Literary