num_pages: 256
description: The Sunday Times of London has called Jim Harrison -a writer with immortality in him- and The Washington Times has written that -Jim Harrison ought to be considered a national treasure.- In The Beast God Forgot to Invent, this American master gives us three novellas that sparkle with the generous humanity and seasoned wisdom of his vision.These are stories of humans and beasts, of culture and wildness, of men driven crazy by longing and of men who dream they are becoming bears. In -The Beast God Forgot to Invent,- a man near the end of his life becomes part of an odd band of caretakers for a younger man whose brain has been damaged in a motorcycle accident, the civilization shaken out of him. Watching over this unmanned man, the hero becomes mindful of his own mortality and excess of civility. In -Westward Ho,- Brown Dog, a Michigan Indian, wanders the wilds of Los Angeles, tracking the ersatz Native activist with whom he fled the police in Michigan and who-s now disappeared with his bearskin. Ogling girls, sleeping in the botanic garden, and working as a driver to a drunk screenwriter, he eventually comes face-to-face with his ex-friend and with the difference between the world he-s been visiting and the world to which he-s going home. And in -I Forgot to Go to Spain,- an aging -alpha canine,- author of three dozen Bioprobes-hundred page disposable biographies-takes dinner with a woman to whom he was married for nine days in his overheated youth. Reminding him of his youthful dream of living in Spain as a poet, she forces him to examine who he-s become, whether he owns his life or it him.Infused with Jim Harrison-s sly humor and quiet wisdom, these are stories with the expansive grace of the American landscape, urban and rural. This book is a resonant journey through the geography of masculinity from a writer in his prime.
language: English
title: The Beast God Forgot to Invent
titlecomplete: The Beast God Forgot to Invent
genres: Literature, American, Collections, Literary Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction
ratings_count: 1082
awards: awardedAt: 978336000000
name: Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY)
category: Fiction - General
publisher: Atlantic Monthly Pr