Review of the Day: The Summer He Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison

I make it a point to read one or two short stories everyday, if I can.  One of my sources for finding stories worth reading is The Story Prize. Jim Harrison’s The Summer He Didn’t Die did not win the prize, but it was a finalist in 2005. 

Let me say a few words about the author. By my count, Jim Harrison published twenty-five novellas. When you consider how few people actually buy and read novellas, this is a large number. Harrison also published fourteen books of poetry. Obviously, poetry sells even less than novellas. Harrison was a decidedly non-commercial writer who, for most of the 1970s lived below the poverty line. However, he is an important voice in literary fiction who deserves to be read and discovered by a new generation of readers and writers.

People usually summarize the plot when they review a book. Instead of providing a plot summary, I would, instead, like to share three quotations that I liked from the book.

There was enough of his early religious phase left in him that he could again give thanks for the mystery of female beauty, her graceful butt protruding like a barnyard duck’s. A little badge on her chest gave her the soft name of Nancy and she was doubtless the type that took a shower and changed her underpants every single day (p. 47).

The most exhilarating aspect of living in the Upper Peninsula, unlike Ann Arbor, was discovering how slow the people were to complain about life’s brutal vagaries. The working class didn’t complain about hangovers because if you had enough money to get drunk in the first place you were in fine shape (p. 74).

Martha was saying something to Frances which I partially missed in the noise of the jet engines’ thrust to the effect that sex was similar to good pistachios in that you couldn’t stop devouring once you started. It was breath-takingly inane but probably true (p. 167).

I enjoyed reading The Summer He Didn’t Die and recommend the book. In fact, I think just about everything Harrison wrote is worth your time.

kindle and audible audiobook. 277 pgs. 12 September 2025.