From the first page of his latest novel, Jim Harrison dispels any idea that his “True North” is a happy place.

“My father woke from his latest faint. His face was too bruised for clear speech and now rather than wailing he bleated. His eyes made his request clear and I pushed him gently over the back of the boat.”

And so this story of destruction and depression begins.

In this lengthy novel, David Burkett III strives to deal with his family’s legacy of cheating, drinking and sexual abuse. Based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Burketts have been logging Native Americans out of their homes for more than a century. Consequently, the family is filthy rich but treated as outcasts by a majority of the regional population. David the third attempts to deal with his familial guilt by becoming a devout Baptist, swearing off booze and resisting lust. This proves to be impossible, and it seems the harder David tries to be good, the more attractive it is to be bad.

While David immerses himself in a lifelong struggle of epic proportions, his friends and family seem to handle their troubles more simply.

“There’s a sure way to stop being a prig,” his uncle Fred says. “Just figure out what’s wrong with your family and avoid doing likewise.”

However, a combination of genes and constant temptation make this a difficult prospect.

Harrison uses the good vs. evil dichotomy frequently, taking delight in writing scenes about exercises in temptation such as, “I flipped through Thessalonians and Colossians, but nothing St. Paul had to say could compete with next door’s sexual racket.”

But while David’s problems are certainly immense they are often hard to sympathize with. His dilemmas involve extreme wealth, too much free time and fending off beautiful women. He abandons the Bible as a source of guidance early on and instead copes by throwing money at problems and generally feeling sorry for himself.

In some ways, Harrison’s themes rely heavily on those of Ernest Hemingway. Burkett is emotionally impaired and uses nature to resolve inner turmoil. In fact, much of the action in “True North” takes place while David is fishing or camping. But rather than playing up male stoicism like Hemingway, Harrison shows David to be a man who yearns constantly for female companionship.

Harrison also differs from Hemingway in his dependency on verbosity. Put shortly, “True North” is simply too cluttered to be compelling. The dialogue is brief and meaningless, serving as simply a break between massive stretches of pitiful introspection and unnecessary details. After 350 pages, it is tedious to read that David eats yet another hamburger with potato soup for lunch. The book is over-saturated with pointless tangential stories like these, which distract from the main points.

The most excessive of these side notes detail David’s lust for every woman he sees who is between 12 and 70. This is a trait typical of Harrison, but in this book it reads tiredly. Harrison is a favorite of “Playboy” magazine, and it is easy to see why. Women of all ages are constantly throwing themselves at David, despite the fact that Harrison describes him as withdrawn and skinny.

Characterizations are this author’s greatest downfall. David is easily one of the most self-absorbed narrators in modern literature, and the other characters aren’t much better. As a grown man David cannot take care of his dog, much less a family, or even himself. Despite his lame efforts to mend burnt bridges and pacify his inner strife, by the end of the book David has succeeded in merely an unhappy survival. Slowly and sadly it becomes clear that there will be nothing revealed and no meaning will be found.

By the end of “True North” many things have been done and said, but nothing has really changed.