Thursday, October 3, 2013

Book Beginnings on Friday: The Great Leader by Jim Harrison


Please join me every Friday to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you are reading, along with your initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires. Please remember to include the title of the book and the author's name.

EARLY BIRDS & SLOWPOKES: This weekly post goes up Thursday evening for those who like to get their posts up and linked early on. But feel free to add a link all week.

TWITTER, ETC: If you are on Twitter, Google+, or other social media, please post using the hash tag #BookBeginnings. I am trying to follow all Book Beginning participants on whatever interweb sites you are on, so please let me know if I have missed any and I will catch up.

MR. LINKY



MY BOOK BEGINNING



Detective Sunderson walked backward on the beach glancing around now and then to make sure he wasn't going to trip over a piece of driftwood.

-- The Great Leader by Jim Harrison.  This is Harrison's latest novel, the story of a retired (just) Michigan State Police detective tracking a cult leader on the lam for child abuse charges.  The "mystery" plot is secondary to typical Harrison musings on age, sex, and the natural world.  

I'm a big Jim Harrison fan and always enjoy his prose -- novels, novellas, essay, and memoir.  His latest books, The Farmer's Daughter (reviewed here) and The English Major (reviewed here) didn't light me up the way his earlier books did.  I don't know if it is because I'm getting older or Harrison is.  But I still enjoy reading whatever he writes.