Click here for books by Jim Harrison A L S O+.T O D A Y The Salon Interview: Andrea Barrett By Peter Kurth A conversation with Andrea Barrett, author of the National Book Award-winning "Ship Fever and Other Stories" The Salon Interview: Ken Follett By David Bowman The thriller-master talks about Bob Dylan, working with Ross Perot and why he prefers the creature comforts of a luxury hotel to the perilous terrain of his heroes - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Confessions of a Late Night Talk Show Host: The Autobiography of Larry Sanders Reviewed by Joyce Millman This pseudomemoir, like the long-running HBO show it derives from, delivers a fun house-mirror reflection of the late-night talk show wars T A B L E+T A L K What books will you be giving as gifts this year? Discuss your list in the Books area of Table Talk B O O K C A S E A new service for book lovers R E C E N T L Y Andrew Sullivan By Carol Lloyd (11/30/98) Lorrie Moore By Dwight Garner (10/27/98) Grace Paley By A.M. Homes (10/26/98) Stephen King By Andrew O'Hehir (09/24/98) Richard Powers By Laura Miller (07/23/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - INTERVIEW ARCHIVE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -----------------------------[  T H E  S A L O N  I N T E R V I E W  ] --------------------Jim Harrison The poet laureate of appetite talks about the saving power of animals, Charles Frazier's prose style and the tyranny of sexual correctness. BY JONATHAN MILES In his seven novels, three novella collections, 11 books of poetry and innumerable essays, Jim Harrison has probed the breadth of human appetites -- for food and drink, for art, for sex, for violence and, most significantly, for the great twin engines of love and death. Perhaps no American writer better appreciates those myriad drives; since the publication of his first collection of poetry, "Plain Songs," in 1966, Harrison has become their poet laureate. His characters -- and, by extension, their creator -- hunger for a wild and sinewy abundance: for, in his words, "mental heat, experience, jubilance," for a life fully lived. Harrison lives in the remoter corners of northern Michigan and southern Arizona with Linda, his wife of almost 40 years. These are places with profound quantities of birds, bears and elbow room; for him these are necessities. He grew up hunting, fishing and hiking in the Michigan woods, and it was these activities -- and the landscapes in which they were conducted -- that fired his early imaginings. And though such aspects of rural life continue to spark his work, Harrison can hardly be accused of being an isolationist bumpkin. He's been moonlighting as a screenwriter for the last two decades and has been paid vast amounts to write scripts for films that almost never reach your local cineplex (1994's "Wolf" was a notable exception, as was the film based on his book "Legends of the Fall"). Harrison claims his own Hollywood hot-list of pals -- Jack Nicholson (who starred in "Wolf"), Harrison Ford, Michael Keaton and the late John Huston among them. He is also a pronounced aesthete, a man who can deconstruct Jung, laud Parisian strip clubs, condemn cuisine minceur and pepper his speech with quotes from Rilke -- all this, perhaps, in the same sentence. This interview was conducted at the bar of New York's Stanhope Hotel, where Harrison was staying during the Manhattan leg of his tour for his new novel, "The Road Home." The book, a prequel/sequel to 1988's "Dalva," is written in five voices -- distinct though similarly rambling and discursive -- that extend the prarie-family saga that Harrison established in "Dalva." We met slightly prior to Harrison's strict 4 o'clock cocktail hour -- the only pinch of discipline, he says, that he regularly upholds. A few minutes into the discussion, however, Harrison ordered a glass of Côtes du Rhône. Tapping his wristwatch, the bartender mildly rebuked him, saying, "Seven minutes still, Mr. Harrison." Harrison's reply was quick: "I promise just to let it breathe until 4," which he did. His book tour had recently taken him to France, where he is accorded virtually superstar status. His longtime pal Terry McDonnell, the editor in chief of Men's Journal, says the French have dubbed Harrison the "Mozart of the Plains," an odd though flattering designation. We began the interview discussing the roots of that legion of French fans. How do you account for your popularity in France? The French have quite a tradition of interest in American literature. You know, it was the French that busted Faulkner open. And they like somewhat rural American fiction. They don't need to read New York fiction -- they already know that. It's the landscape and the setting that they've long been interested in. They don't have that there -- that enormous space -- and they have a much more homogeneous social life. They like the stew that America is. Barry Hannah is very popular there as well. They must also appreciate a fondness for lush language. That's true. They will accept that in a way that it's hard to get accepted in America. They're not so grotesquely plot-oriented. Even if you look in their literature -- try reading Proust and looking for a plot line. Or a short sentence. Exactly. The sentence started two pages ago. [Laughs] The French are very sophisticated in a literary sense, but they aren't lit majors. They're just people -- butchers, actresses, actual bakers. They're not in the lit game or the lit industry. I think it's interesting what someone there said to me once -- it's something that I hadn't thought before, and it startled me. He told me that (the French) read me because in my fiction you have the life of relative action but also the life of the mind. In so much fiction we have one or the other, but never both. We tend to try to separate them. You find that in Barry's work as well -- this marvelously convoluted thinking system but yet people are still doing something. I don't sit around thinking about fiction ever, except the work at hand, but that comment was somehow a fresh approach. This is true about a number of my books, but especially this one. There aren't any real dumb people in my voices. It's always irritated me about Hollywood dialogue -- there's so much dialogue that would just bore a Ford mechanic. This is not how people talk. Even the pulp-cutters in my hometown tavern have more interesting speech than this. So where does this stuff come from? It's some kind of incredible reductive urge. N E X T+P A G E+| The similarities between the desires of humans and animals - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.