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Jim Harrison lost the sight of one eye in a childhood accident, and he became a novelist after falling off a cliff while bird hunting: during his recovery his friend Thomas McGuane suggested he try a novel, and the result was Wolf: A False Memoir (1971). Legends of the Fall (1979), three novellas, became the 1994 film with Brad Pitt and Anthony Hopkins. He collected his food writing for Esquire and Men’s Journal in The Raw and the Cooked (2001), named a book of poems After Ikkyū (1996) after a Zen monk, and died of heart failure at his writing desk in Patagonia, Arizona, on 26 March 2016, while drafting a poem. The first biography, Todd Goddard’s Devouring Time, appeared in November 2025. The ten writers below share his appetites: wild country, hunting and fishing, food, and a Zen-trained attention to the moment.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · American fiction and poetry · Wild country and appetite · Updated October 2026
Quick answer
If you love Jim Harrison, start with Thomas McGuane, his friend since Michigan State, who suggested he write his first novel and whose Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973) has the same comic, outdoor energy. Ernest Hemingway wrote hunting, fishing and northern Michigan first, and Gary Snyder, whom Harrison named as an influence, joins Zen practice to wild places in Turtle Island (1974). Further down are a Russian hunter-writer from the 1850s and two writers who see the West very differently.
10 authors like Jim Harrison
Where to start if you loved Jim Harrison
If you want his closest companion, read Thomas McGuane.
Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973) is short, funny and full of fishing.
If you want the Michigan woods first, read Ernest Hemingway.
The Nick Adams stories in In Our Time (1925) are set in Harrison’s northern country.
If you want the Zen poetry, read Gary Snyder.
Turtle Island (1974) won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
If you want a frontier saga, read Larry McMurtry.
Lonesome Dove (1985) is the natural companion to Legends of the Fall.
If you want to go back to Harrison, start with Legends of the Fall.
Then read Dalva (1988) or the Brown Dog novellas, collected in 2013.
Frequently asked questions about authors like Jim Harrison
Who writes like Jim Harrison?
Thomas McGuane, Ernest Hemingway and Gary Snyder are the closest: McGuane for the comic outdoor fiction, Hemingway for hunting and fishing in northern Michigan, Snyder for Zen poetry of wild places.
What should I read after Legends of the Fall?
Try Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove (1985), another frontier family saga, or Thomas McGuane’s Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973).
Is Jim Harrison like Ernest Hemingway?
In subject, yes: both wrote hunting, fishing and the northern Michigan woods. Harrison’s prose is looser, funnier and more open about food, appetite and Zen.
Does Jim Harrison have a new book?
No. Harrison died in 2016; his Complete Poems appeared in 2021 and a nonfiction collection, The Search for the Genuine, in 2022. The first biography, Todd Goddard’s Devouring Time, was published in November 2025.
Which Jim Harrison book should I read first?
Legends of the Fall (1979), three novellas; then Dalva (1988) for a full novel, or The Raw and the Cooked (2001) for his food writing.
Was Legends of the Fall made into a film?
Yes. Edward Zwick’s 1994 film starred Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn and won the Academy Award for cinematography.
Sources
List last reviewed 31 October 2026.
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