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Book Reviews
Map of a Journey
THE ENGLISH MAJOR
By Jim Harrison
255 pp. Grove West $24.00
Reviewed by Ann Hite
Jim Harrison’s new novel, The English Major, is a story about reinvention at its deepest level. Cliff, a former high school English teacher and cherry farmer in Michigan, is stunned when his wife of nearly forty years, Vivian, leaves him for her old high school sweetheart. Despite Vivian’s discontent as a farmer’s wife and foray into the world of real estate as a broker and top salesperson, Cliff never saw her betrayal coming. He didn’t notice Vivian’s transformation from quiet to outspoken, from butterscotch schnapps to scotch on the rocks. For the first time in his adult life, Cliff is alone. Soon thereafter, Cliff’s dearest companion Lola, a thirteen-year-old Lab-collie cross, dies. Cliff believes he killed Lola with the car one night when he returned home from the local bar. When he learns Lola died of natural causes, it bothers him more. He has always seen his life as predictable, a life with no risks. “Vivian got lots of speeding tickets but I’ve never received one in my life.” Vivian’s betrayal and Lola’s death don’t fit into his worldview.
Forced to sell his farm, Cliff is sent packing with a mere ten percent of the profit. While packing his belongings, Cliff finds an old puzzle of the United States saved from his childhood. You know the kind where each state is a different color, borders clearly marked? The find inspires Cliff—why not drive through each state, disposing of the appropriate piece when crossing the state line, keeping a journal along the way? So begins chapter two of his life.
Cliff visits a former English student, Marybelle, one of only three students he desired to stay in touch with. They corresponded every few months for twenty-five years about the ups and downs of life. Marybelle was the student who shared his love of stamens and pistils, while aching over the romantic tragedy in Wuthering Heights. On Cliff’s arrival, Marybelle insists on joining him. They have a whirlwind affair while traveling across four states.
He soon sheds Marybelle, realizing she is a whiny, spoiled professor’s wife with attitudes like Vivian’s. Cliff heads to Arizona, where he ends up on a snake farm owned by an old classmate. Finally he finds his way across country to his son Robert, who is living a high-octane existence as a big time movie producer—this is the son who revealed he was gay and left home before Cliff could get used to the idea. Hadn’t Cliff handled Robert’s coming out well enough—without showing surprise, anger, or disappointment? But still there was a distance between them that left him empty and incomplete years later.
Jim Harrison is the author of over twenty-five books of poetry, nonfiction, and fiction, including Legends of the Fall, The Road Home, and The Summer He Didn’t Die. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship. He splits his time between Montana and Arizona.
The English Major is a metaphorical map of a man’s journey to redefine his life. I was pulled into this story head first. Cliff mattered to me. I somehow identified with him, and wanted to make every mile he traveled. I’m now one of Mr. Harrison’s vociferous cheerleaders.
Ann Hite is hard at work on Where The Souls Go, or, as she commonly calls it, The Beast. Where The Souls Go is the second novel in an intended series of Black Mountain Stories. When not in her fictional community of Black Mountain, Ann can be found hanging out with her family.
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