Dalva (Contemporary Classics (Washington Square Press)) Paperback – Import, 1 January 1991

Wonderfully written, a succession of vivid stories and characters, in the context of a serious issue. I was sorry when it finished.

+++ Wonderful

Wow!There are so many remarkable aspects to this book that I hardly know where to begin. It is of course a portrait of Dalva, an exceptional woman and her personality emerges gradually in thin layers. In her early teens, she feels vulnerable due to being precociously attractive. Her obsession with her lost lover is made increasingly poignant by the discovery of his true identity. Even though she suffers from the loss of each of the men who have been so important in her life -- her father, her lover, her son and her grandfather -- she becomes a very self-assured and successful woman. And yet Dalva has complex relationships with a series of highly dysfunctional men: Michael, a feckless, alcoholic, emotionally dependent professor; her wandering, iconoclastic uncle Paul; her gay ex-brother-in-law Ted; and even Sam, an aging cowboy who has seen better days. All this is told in Dalva's own voice and Harrison has wonderfully immersed himself into her character.But there are two other voices in this book and they bring an entirely different flavor. When Harrison speaks as Michael in Part 2, he quite frankly emerges as a jerk. This is the cynical, jaded smart-ass Jim Harrison who was so annoying in "The Beast God Forgot to Invent". Having read "Dalva" I'm glad I didn't give up on Harrison after the previous book. I'm not convinced that Miachael's contribution was really necessary in telling the story, except as a device to bring the story of Dalva's great grandfather Northridge to the fore. And here we have the third voice, through Northridge's journals that Michael is studying with a view to publication. The journals focus largely on the tragic and shameful saga of the destruction of the Sioux at the hands of the US government and land speculators.Harrison has achieved great things here, most notably in his ability to create atmosphere, a sense of time and place and depth of emotional feeling through sounds, smells, memories, vistas. Dalva's account of a camping trip when she was eight years old (page 17 in my paperback edition) is breathtaking; prose in its best sense. And then Harrison immediately wallops you with the loss of Dalva's father! That sort of thing happens several times in the book: Life-changing events that just hit you unexpectedly.Some readers may object to the fact that Harrison uses the book to rant about the treatment of the natives. But Dalva's family history is an essential part of who she is and why she behaves as she does. Others (myself included) may dislike Part 2 because of Michel's egocentric personality and disreputable behavior. But both of those aspects are done very well and contribute in their way to the story of Dalva; and hers is a great story.

This book was a gift sent directly to family. It is a shame and very embarassing.

Pour des raisons inexplicable, cet écrivain n'est pas très connu aux pays anglophones, mais la literature vous intéresse, il faut le lire!