I love Jim Harrison. I hated this book. A long apparent apologia for alcoholism and old men having sex with young women (and girls), the protagonist’s excuses and mild self-condemnation prevented neither his doing such things repeatedly nor a sense of distaste in the reader. I really looked forward to this book. A couple chapters in, I really looked forward to it being over.
Never figured a Jim Harrison book would be a waste of time. ( )

There comes a time when writers need to stop writing. This book is a perfect example of this belief. I haven't read this author before but based on this book it is time for this author to be put out to pasture.
This book is a dogs breakfast of a story. It is a mess. For the life of me I can't tell you the point of it.
What it is not
1. It is not a mystery.
2. It is not a well told interesting story.
What it is
1. An aging ex cop
2. Who is an alcoholic.
3. And a borderline pedophile, and most certainly a degenerate.
4. A person who name drops: alcohol brands and cookware
5. Who likes to fish, catch fish, dream about past fishing trips, and eat fish: rainbow trout, brown trout, and brook trout, in various groupings.
6. Who buys a cabin next door to a family straight out of Deliverance, and proceeds to watch them get killed off, with or without his involvement.
7. Get involved with one member of the family (Monica who is under 22, her age is vague) who he hires as a housekeeper for his minuscule cabin, then starts sleeping with her, he likes them young.
8. He still loves his ex wife or at least the idea of having sex with her.
9. He has sex with his adopted daughter who is at least above the age of consent, but later feels bad afterwords.....sort of.
10. Has a dying mother who he goes and visits
11. Takes Monica to see mom since he got her pregnant, and because mom lives in Arizona which is near Mexico which is a place Monica has always wanted to go.
12. Oh yeah the book starts with a completely unneeded subplot of his adopted daughter leaving college, hooking up with a musician, getting hooked on drugs, living in Paris, needing Daddy to rescue her, and then they have sex.
13. The title refers to the 7 deadly sins which the main character is intimate with all of them, but he feels an 8th one needs to be added which is violence.
Something that is also a big part of his life.
The only redeeming quality is that while the story is a mess, the writing is well done.
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME.

( )

Entertaining almost despite the awfulness of the family of scumbags at the center of it, and the author's habit of randomly tossing in ghastly asides from his past. The protagonist is as human a character as he's ever created, and you root for him despite everything. ( )

*I received a review copy of this e-book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

This is my first novel by Jim Harrison and I really enjoyed it. I have also purchased his famous Legends of the Fall and am looking forward to reading his catalog. It is always great to find a new (to me) author that I enjoy.

The Big Seven is two things. First of all, it is a very good crime story. This was my favorite part and it comprises about the first 75% of the story. Secondly, this novel is a character study of its deeply flawed narrator, an aging alcoholic who at the age of 65 has now developed an irresistible impulse to crawl into bed with any woman he encounters, especially very young ones. Phillip Roth often writes about this same type of character, as did Joyce Carroll Oates’ in her brilliant novella Patricide. Neither of these novelists treat the character with any undue amount of sympathy, and Harrison is no different.

I read this book in just a little more than a day. Despite the fact that it is quite deep and introspective at times it remains a compelling read and a cracking good crime storyline really provides quite a bit of entertainment. Somehow along the way Harrison manages to delve into what makes good fiction and art, famous writers (mainly Hemingway—who is similar to our narrator and not just for their mutual love of fishing, and Faulkner who may be the writer our narrator wishes he could be), the atrocities of war and deep introspection into the mental processes and development of our largely unlikeable narrator. It is amazing how much is in here. I know that I will be thinking about this novel long after I have finished it.

My only gripe is that after the crime drama has reached its conclusion the novel really unravels from a narrative point of view and got to the point of navel gazing by our narrator who can’t seem to focus on much of anything. Perhaps that was the point all along. Without a crime to provide focus, our narrator is a drifting lost soul who can’t decide if he wants to enter a monastery or buy another drink or pursue another woman. He knows what he should do and where he should be, but doesn’t seem very compelled to get there. Maybe it is my frustration with the character and not the novel. I will have to think about it a bit more before I decide.

For now I will hunt up my copy of Legends of the Fall because this Harrison guy is a damn good writer. ( )

An introspective retired Detective Sunderson blackmails a musician that his adult stepdaughter is running away from college to be with. He in turn has sex with the stepdaughter. He takes the money and buys a fishing cabin, where he encounters the wild, murderous Ames family, "certifiably nuts, a severe genetic mishap." He has sex with one of them, a 19 year-old, and also helps her get away from her bad family situation. He's 65.

To himself, it seems that Sunderson "existed totally on a diet of reverie and fishing." Not totally, but that's a lot of the book. There's also sex with young women and offhandedly solving Ames family murders. He also ponders his divorce from his ex-wife Diane and hopes to reconcile with her in some way. It looks like he might manage it too. ( )