THE ENGLISH MAJOR: JIM HARRISON

This book was recommended to me by two of my breakfast club friends, Joe Johnson and Dick Redington, both avid readers.  I had never read Harrison before but I had often heard his name and his books recommended so I decided to give it a try, why not if it was called THE ENGLISH MAJOR.  Fortunately, it had little to do with English, rather it chronicles a few months in the life of Cliff, an ex English teacher, then farmer in the Upper Peninsula, who at sixty, divorces, is forced by his ex wife to sell the farm and thus, finds himself cast out, with little money, no job, just an urge to travel with what's left in his bank account after his divorce.

So, like many novels, he yearns to be free, jumps in his old car, and takes off West, with little direction in mind.  He just happened to keep in touch with a former student, Maybelle, a woman of course, and she wants to go with him to Bozeman, where her husband is invovlved in a 'dig.'  Cliff, seemingly forever randy, finds just the right companion in Maybelle and they screw their way to Montana, without a thought of either one's mates.  Sex is about all they have in common and after awhile even Cliff tires of it, wonders how nice it might be to be left alone to just enjoy the going.  But then 'biology' as he calls it steps in and they are in bed again.  Eventually, he leaves her in Bozeman, hits one state after another, stopping briefly, ending up in San Francisco with his gay son.  Maybelle pursues him, ends up convincing the son to fly her to San Francisco.  Cliff, not ready to settle down or travel with Maybelle, ends up leaving for Arizona, to visit a buddy.  Meanwhile, his wife finds out her lover is cheating on her, calls Cliff, wants to reconcile.  I leave it to your imagination to figure out what happens, who he ends up with, if anyone, and where.  The novel does not have much of a story, more picaresque, as they say but the musings of Cliff about life, farming, living alone, marriage and, of course woman and 'biology' are what kept me interested until about the last third when it became more of the same, not a lot different to say.  I really liked it at  first but gradually lost my fire for it; still I would say it's worth reading.