The Farmer's Daughter

Jim Harrison's most ambitious and stunning collection of novellas since Legends of the Fall The Farmer's Daughter is an unforgettable portrait of three decidedly unconventional American lives. With wit, poignancy, and an unmatched depth of spirit and humanity, Harrison has again reminded us why he is one of the most cherished and important authors at work today.
The three stories in The Farmer's Daughter display a writer whose gift is in full flower. The title novella is the uncompromising, heartbreaking tale of Sarah, a home-schooled fifteen-yearold girl recently transplanted by her somewhat oblivious parents to rural Montana, who is learning that the world is larger than her fundamentalist mother wants her to know. In the rapture of playing music, riding her horse, and enjoying the natural world, Sarah searches for clues to understand her own coming of age. But when her mother runs off with another man, the girl is left to deal with an act of unexpected brutality that will test her faith in the world she is starting to embrace.
In Brown Dog Redux, Harrison shifts to the lighter side. The beloved recurring character Brown Dog is killing time in Toronto where he's fled to save his adopted daughter, Berry, from being locked in an institution. But Toronto has run out of welcome and BD, still looking for love, enlists the help of an unexpected benefactor to sneak Berry back into the States on the tour bus of an Indian rock band called Thunderskins, with riotously funny results. Harrison's final tale, Games of Night, is the witty, ribald, and occasionally harrowing memoir of a retired werewolf in contemporary times. Misdiagnosed with a rare blood disorder brought on by the bite of a Mexican hummingbird, he attempts to lead a normal life, but is nevertheless plagued by hazy, feverish episodes of epic lust, physical appetite, athletic exertions, and outbursts of violence under the full moon.
The Farmer's Daughter is a full meal of a book-a rich and rewarding visit to the world of an American master.