Quick Take
- Narration: Traber Burns delivers a performance that honors Harrison’s prose without trying to become him, sustaining the collection’s tonal range from ribald humor to genuine elegy.
- Themes: Nature writing and masculine appetite, literary friendship and influence, mortality and the examined life
- Mood: Earthy and wide-ranging, like sitting across a table from someone who has read everything and eaten well
- Verdict: An essential collection for Harrison readers and a rewarding entry point for newcomers who want to understand why he is considered one of the great American prose stylists.
Jim Harrison died in 2016 at his writing desk in Arizona, reportedly with a pen in his hand, which is either apocryphal or exactly right, depending on how you know his work. The Search for the Genuine is a posthumous collection of essays assembled from decades of journalism, previously published pieces, and some never-before-published writing. It appeared in 2022, six years after his death, and at twelve hours it is one of the most substantial audio introductions to a writer who, despite a long career and a devoted following, has never quite achieved the mainstream recognition his work deserves.
I came to Harrison through his novellas, specifically Legends of the Fall, before working my way back to his poetry and eventually to his essays. The nonfiction has always been the genre where his particular qualities, what the publisher calls a poet’s economy of style and a trencherman’s appetites and ribald humor, are most visible without the mediation of plot. The Search for the Genuine gathers those qualities across a range of subjects that reflects the actual texture of Harrison’s life: hunting and fishing, Zen Buddhism, the US-Mexico border, Bukowski and Neruda and Peter Matthiessen, sharks in the open ocean, Yellowstone.
Our Take on The Search for the Genuine
The collection is not thematically unified beyond the unifying consciousness of the writer. That is both its freedom and its occasional limitation. Harrison moves between registers without warning, from the profane to the genuinely spiritual, from close nature observation to literary criticism, from comedy to what reviewer BK calls great storytelling even in nonfiction. For readers unfamiliar with Harrison’s voice, this can feel disorientating at first. For those who know him, it is precisely the point. He was suspicious of any prose that organized itself too neatly, and the essays reflect that suspicion. The border essay in particular, which confronts the deaths of those trying to cross into the United States illegally, carries a weight and moral clarity that few American writers have brought to that subject.
Why Listen to The Search for the Genuine
Traber Burns is one of the better working audiobook narrators in the literary nonfiction space, and his casting here is well-judged. He does not attempt to recreate Harrison’s reportedly gruff, idiosyncratic speaking voice. Instead he finds a register that serves the prose as prose: authoritative, slightly rough around the edges, capable of sustaining both the comic and the elegiac passages without flattening either. The collection’s tonal variety is actually a test for any narrator, and Burns passes it. Reviewer BK notes the book is best enjoyed without any expectations, and that advice extends to the listening experience. Bring curiosity rather than a predetermined sense of what a Jim Harrison essay sounds like.
What to Watch For in The Search for the Genuine
This is a posthumous collection assembled from materials across several decades, and the internal consistency of tone varies accordingly. Pieces written in the 1980s sit alongside later work, and the seams occasionally show. Some essays feel more finished than others, and a handful of the shorter pieces read more like occasional journalism than the full essays that form the collection’s best moments. Listeners expecting the sustained formal control of Harrison’s novella work should know that essays operate by a different logic for him, and the rougher pieces are rough intentionally. The review noting that Harrison is always good and the collection allows his nonfiction to be in one place is an appropriate calibration: this is essential for Harrison readers, and a reasonable entry point for newcomers, but it is not the place to start if you have never encountered him and want his most formally achieved work.
Who Should Listen to The Search for the Genuine
Harrison readers who have not yet come to his essays should start here immediately. The collection is comprehensive and the audio format suits the conversational, expansive quality of his prose. New listeners with interests in American nature writing, literary friendship and influence, or a certain strain of masculine existentialism that spans Hemingway and Bukowski will find Harrison’s particular version of all of this fresh and unclassifiable. Not recommended for listeners who need tightly plotted narrative or a clearly organized argument. Harrison essays wander on purpose.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you need to know Jim Harrison’s fiction before approaching this essay collection?
No, but some familiarity helps. The essays assume a reader who understands what literary ambition looks like and who recognizes the writers Harrison references, including Neruda, Matthiessen, and Bukowski. Absolute newcomers may want to read a brief overview of Harrison’s career first.
How does Traber Burns handle the tonal range of Harrison’s essays, from ribald humor to genuine elegy?
With considerable skill. Burns maintains a consistent vocal identity while adjusting register for the material. He does not overplay the comic passages or melodramatize the more somber ones. The performance holds together across twelve hours despite the collection’s internal variety.
Is The Search for the Genuine a good introduction to Harrison, or should first-time listeners start with his fiction?
Either works as an entry point. The essays give you direct access to Harrison’s sensibility and interests without the mediation of fictional narrative. Some readers find the essays more immediately accessible than the novellas. Others prefer to start with Legends of the Fall and come to the nonfiction after.
How much of the collection covers Harrison’s engagement with nature and the outdoors versus his literary criticism?
Nature, hunting, and fishing are the dominant subjects, consistent with what most readers associate with Harrison. The literary criticism and commentary on other writers is a smaller portion but some of the most considered writing in the collection. The border essay stands apart from both as a piece of moral journalism.
