Excitedly Anticipating Publication of “Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life” by Todd Goddard

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May 27 2025 update:

For fans of Jim Harrison eager to have their copy of Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life as soon as possible upon publication November 4, 2025, please click through to the websites of major book retailers below, using the pre-order/buy buttons provided:

1) Bookshop.org/for pre-ordering Devouring Time (Bookshop is an online bookseller whose sales support many independent bookstores)  2) Barnes & Noble/for pre-ordering Devouring Time   3) Books-A-Million/for pre-ordering Devouring Time  4) Amazon

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May 22, 2025
As reported on this website in April 2020, for our author client Todd Goddard, Philip Turner Book Productions sold Devouring Time: Jim Harrison, a Writer’s Life to Blackstone Publishing. Due to the pandemic, a number of key archives were inaccessible for 2-3 years but the author persevered and his book, the first biography of the protean American writer—beloved to readers for his poetry, many novellas, full-length novels, and essays that covered the gamut from food to fishing to foreign locales—will be published in hardcover, ebook, and as an audiobook on November 4, 2025. You can see the cover image from the advanced reading copy (ARC) that is being distributed to bookstores, book critics, and literary journalists, and the back cover copy.

Things are setting up very well for the book, with this enthusiastic blurb already received from the author and activist Rebecca Solnit, who writes that,

“Jim Harrison was a mustang that never got corralled, or at least broke out of all the paddocks he found himself in, and Todd Goddard tells the story of this bon vivant, outdoorsman, hellion, and great poet from his ancestors to his end with grace, momentum, generosity, and insight. I was more than glad to go on the journey that was Harrison’s life in Devouring Time’s narrative, and what a great American life it was, wreckage, glory, gifts, and all”— Rebecca Solnit, author of Orwell’s Roses

The biography of Jim Harrison (1937-2016) unfolds across a number of key places, from the lakes and forests of Michigan, his home state, to the Florida Keys, to Greenwich Village, to Durango, Mexico, as well as Montana, Hollywood, Arizona, and Provence, France. In the archives, Todd Goddard found a rich record of correspondence, including many letters with Raymond Carver, Francis Ford Coppola, Annie Dillard, Louise Erdrich, Allen Ginsberg, Barry Lopez, Peter Matthiessen, Norman Mailer, Gary Snyder, David Foster Wallace, Terry Tempest Williams, and Tom McGuane. Goddard is an associate professor of literary studies at Utah Valley University, has taught Harrison’s fiction and poetry, and presented research on Harrison’s works for the Jim Harrison Society at the American Literature Association’s annual conference.

We have some ARCs available, so let me know, if you or someone you know—a bookseller say, or a reviewer—wants one because of the sort of books they read, carry, and write about, including Harrison’s own poetry, essays, and novellas, the latter being a form he excelled at beyond any fiction writer of his era. 

This week, Harrison’s classic 1989 poetry collection, The Theory and Practice of Rivers, has been reissued in a new edition from his longtime poetry publisher, Copper Canyon Press. In advance of that, Todd Goddard, Rebecca Solnit, and Jamie Harrison, one of Jim’s daughters, took part in an online discussion of the book with Copper Canyon publisher Joseph Bednarik. In addition, Copper Canyon printed a sweet little broadside for The Theory and Practice of Rivers, which I was delighted to receive in the mail, as shown in the photo gallery below. The republication of The Theory and Practice of Rivers is timely in that it happens to coincide with the publication this week of Is a River Alive?  by another of my favorite writers on nature and landscape, Robert Macfarlane. Taken together the two books are sure to bring renewed attention to our riverine world.

All in all, it’s shaping up to be a great year for the indomitable Jim Harrison!

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Sold: “First Great Sorrow: My Years with Senator Robert Kennedy,” a memoir by Donna Chaffee

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As literary agent, I’m very pleased to have sold First Great Sorrow: My Years with Senator Robert Kennedy, a memoir by Donna Chaffee, to Usher Morgan of Library Tales, a new publisher for me.

One of the reasons I’m optimistic for Ms Chaffee’s book, and the publicity it’s likely to attract, is that I sense a backlash brewing to RFK Jr.’s controversial tenure in the Trump administration. The same day we announced Donna’s book in Publishersmarketplace, it was also announced that Kerry Kennedy, sister of RFK Jr., is going to publish Ethel: Faith, Hope, Family, and an Extraordinary American Life, a biography of her mother Ethel Skakel Kennedy, written with Maryanne Vollers, with the Harper One imprint; by coincidence, as editor I earlier published a book with Kerry Kennedy, Speak Truth to Power: Human Rights Defenders  Who Are Changing the World (Crown Publishing, 2000) which shows her commitment to social justice and human rights. I think there will be a good synergy between the new books by the two women, Donna and Kerry.

I am reminded that during the 2024 campaign for the presidency, many Kennedy family members expressed opposition to, and unease with RFK Jr holding high office. With him now installed in the federal government, I believe the Kennedys will continue providing counterweights to the shameful example being set by their dangerous sibling and close relative, especially in contrast to his father.

As to Donna Chaffee’s book itself, it is a rare personal account of the charismatic Senator whose life was abbreviated so tragically.. The memoir covers the years Chaffee knew and worked with RFK, from the time he became a member of the Senate in January 1965, through his run for the Democratic nomination in 1968, and his murder that June. Over the decades she retained a lot of material from that time, including photographs, and has remained a member of the close-knit community of Kennedy family friends and associates. Her book will be published on June 6, 2026, 58th anniversary of the assassination.

Following the Senator’s death, Chaffee received a degree in Political Science from UC Berkeley and embarked upon a career in public service, working for more than 20 years as a financial manager for the County of Los Angeles. Since her retirement, she has become actively involved in cheetah conservation in Africa and traveled the world, visiting more than seventy countries.

 

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Sold: “John McGraw: The Tumultuous Life and Times of Baseball’s ‘Little Napoleon'” by Daniel R. Levitt

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Very excited to have sold a great new baseball book to Rob Taylor at University of Nebraska Press, one of the very best editors and publishers of sports books. John McGraw: The Tumultuous Life and Times of Baseball’s ‘Little Napoleon’ by Daniel R. Levitt. It will be the first full biography of the New York Giants’ legendary player-manager in two decades, apart from a 2018 book that focused mostly on McGraw’s many ejections from games. As described in my announcement of the deal, his “acumen as a field general was unparalleled, with innovations in play that enlivened the dead-ball era….[But with] gambling and on-field fisticuffs common….McGraw, a diminutive second basemen was usually among the brawlers; on the base paths, belligerence reigned as just one or at most two umpires enforced the rules, and McGraw and opponents often tangled in mutual brazen aggression.” With a tip of the ball cap to publishing pal David Wilk, who referred the author to me. For publication in 2027. #baseball #biography #NewYorkCity #DeadBallEra

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To the Summit of Mt Everest or Bust, Fueled by Xenon Gas

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In the present era of international mountaineering in the Himalayas, which began in the early decades of the twentieth century, seasonal weather patterns mean that May has long been climbing season on the great peaks, including Mt Everest. The devastating events in Jon Krakauer’s book Into Thin Air, when eight climbers died on Everest, occurred in May 1996. Here’s a fascinating article on a summit attempt that is taking place right now, in May 2025. Four British soldiers-turned-mountaineers are attempting to summit Everest, and raising money for charity through their effort. That part’s okay, or normal enough, if you discount the reality that far too many people now try to climb Everest every year, with veritable traffic jams happening on the most popular routes and chokepoints, like the South Col, and lots of refuse is left on the mountains that then must get carted down at some point. The article started to become strange for me when I read that the quartet is going to try to do it in only seven days, while most teams take a month or even more. Most expeditions have their team members acclimatize to the oxygen-depleted atmosphere, because altitude sickness above 6000 meters (or around 19,700 feet) is common, and what can be a death zone is above 7900 meters (around 26,200 feet). It is hoped that the more time climbers spend adjusting to this altitude, they will be better able to handle all the rigors, keeping in mind that the summit of Everest itself is higher still, at 8,849 meters (29,356 feet). This often means that for the climactic stretch of the ascent, climbers can be very ill and struggling with multiple debilities, including mental confusion and bad decision-making, which can lead to fatal mis-steps and mistakes.

However, to achieve their lightning-quick ascent the four British climbers are experimenting with unproven medical stratagems to acclimatize their bodies in advance of ever even traveling to the Himalayas last Friday. Back home they’ve been sleeping in oxygen-deprived tents (dubbed “hypoxic tents,” as they tried to create conditions that mimicked those they’ll encounter this week on the mountain. They report nights of terrible sleep the past several months, and express some uncertainty as to whether the tents have helped, though they’ve stuck with using them for months. Even more bizarre, though, are inhalations of xenon gas they’ve been administering to themselves the past few months, in hopes of boosting their red blood cells; they’ll also use xenon gas again once they’re in situ.

Unsurprisingly, the expedition has attracted criticism in the mountaineering and the medical world from people who believe what they’re doing is not only unproven, it’s and potentially dangerous. The team members claim they’ll have a lighter environmental footprint, and it’s no more dangerous than any other summit attempt. In addition, though mountaineering—unlike competitive sports such as cycling and tennis, which have governing bodies that monitor athletes’ blood and urine, and try to hold them to account if they use banned substances—has no official body to sanction the British climbers, or even to rule on whether what they’re doing is ethical or justified. To them, apparently, it’s an acceptable risk, and they won’t be stopped from making this attempt though it may prove foolhardy.

wapo.st/4358woo

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Remembering Solly Ganor, and “Light One Candle”

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In 1995, when I was editor-in-chief for Kodansha America, the US division of the then largest Japanese publisher, Kodansha Ltd., I edited a powerful Holocaust memoir whose author is mentioned in a moving Washington Post article out this weekend headlined, “How a little-known Japanese American battalion freed Jews from a Nazi death march,” linked to here. The book was titled, Light One Candle: A Survivor’s Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem, by Solly Ganor (1928-2020). It recounts how in early May 1945, a little more than eighty years go, the author’s life was saved at Dachau by Clarence Matsumara, also mentioned herein—a US service member who was part of  the 522nd Field Artillery Battalion, made up mostly of Japanese Americans, many who had relatives then interned by the American government.

Earlier in Solly’s life, at age eleven in Kaunas, Lithuania, he happened to meet and befriend the Japanese consul, Chiune Sugihara, who boldly, and without permission from his own government, was signing hundreds of transit visas for Jews and other Lithuanians desperate to flee Nazi-occupied countries. Solly and his family could have tried to leave, but did not. Later, the local Jewish population was corralled into a ghetto, which Solly frequently dared to escape from, entering the larger part of the city for food, and other necessities of life, among them books. Later, he was impressed into forced labor by the Nazis, harsh servitude he somehow had survived until the day he was found by Clarence and his unit, emaciated but alive. When Clarence appeared over him, as he gazed on the face and features of a person of Japanese heritage, he thought of Sugihara, and knew he was looking at someone who would help him.

The Post article links to an oral history that Solly provided to the Holocaust Museum in 1997, and I’m also linking to it here. With the 80th anniversary of V-E Day celebrated in the Allied countries just last week, and even marked with proper solemnity in Germany, I was inspired to read the Post article about the Japanese unit that fought the Axis in Europe, and remember working with Solly on his moving memoir, which covers the same period.

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