The scion of a family of wealthy timber barons, David Burkett has grown up with a father who is a malevolent force more than a father, and a mother made vague and numb by alcohol and pills. He and his sister Cynthia, a firecracker who scandalizes the family at fourteen by taking up with the son of their FinnishNative American gardener, are mostly left to make their own way. As David comes to adulthoodenlightened and enlivened at various points by an unforgettable triumvirate of intoxicating womenhe realizes he must come to terms with his forefathers rapacious destruction of the woods of Michigans Upper Peninsula, as well as with the working people who made their wealth possible. (Atlantic Monthly Press)
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Thomas Curwen
Harrison consistently commands our attention for his humanity and his tenderness. That he can create such tension in the process -- a tension not released until the last page --and in the end forge such violence shows his skill as a storyteller and makes True North a great achievement.
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Favorable
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Publishers Weekly Staff
Harrison's tragic sense of history and his ironic insight into the depravities of human nature are as potent as ever.
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Favorable
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The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Ray Robertson
David's -- and Harrison's -- real mission is nothing less than pure transcendence; the social, political and psychological clear-cutting at which he diligently labours away is ultimately only the necessary starting point for the sowing of an elusive, spiritually regenerative seed.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Anthony Quinn
This sprawling, rackety novel will not do a great deal for Jim Harrison's reputation as a stylist, but in his portrait of a father and a son he has made an indelible addition to the gallery of literature's ''bad dads.''
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Mixed
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Booklist Brad Hooper
The chronology becomes too disjointed and confusing, and the underlying theme of the personal redressing of the sins of one's father remains too underlying, too diffusely explored, and fails to hold the plot elements together. [1 Mar 2004, p.1101]
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Mixed
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Kirkus Reviews Staff
These are grim themes, and since the only humor here comes from the grown-up David's caustic comments about the idiocies of his younger self, one has to admit that True North is not always a lot of fun to read.
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Unfavorable
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Library Journal Barbara Hoffert
David's account of his soul searching and various sexual grapplings is strangely flat and listless, which is surprising, given Harrison's reputation for acute and well-rendered insight. [1 Apr 2004, p.122]
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Unfavorable
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Boston Globe Scott W. Helman
Has its moments, but by and large Harrison does far too much telling and not enough showing. One assumes he did that because he wanted readers to have every insight into David's thoughts and actions, no matter how trite.
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Unfavorable
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Chicago Sun-Times Stephen J. Lyons
His constant feelings of remorse and anxiety can be tiresome reading. When he stumbles to conclusions they seem trite.
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