A Good Day to Die was published by Simon & Schuster in 1973. The narrator (unnamed, a failed novelist and dissolute fisherman) meets Tim in a Key West bar — a Vietnam veteran, damaged and dangerous, driven by the conviction that environmental destruction must be physically resisted. Together with Tim’s girlfriend Sylvia, they drive across America to Idaho, where they plan to dynamite a dam that is destroying a pristine river.
The road trip is fueled by alcohol, pills, and Tim’s increasingly unhinged determination. The narrator is along partly out of boredom, partly out of sympathy for the cause, and partly because Tim’s manic energy is impossible to resist. Sylvia is caught between the two men — attracted to both, controlled by neither. The novel builds toward the attempted demolition with the inevitability of tragedy: the reader knows (as the characters half-know) that the plan cannot succeed and that violence will turn inward.
Harrison wrote the novel in the wake of the environmental movement’s early radicalism — Edward Abbey had published Desert Solitaire in 1968, and eco-sabotage was becoming a tactic. But Harrison’s treatment is not ideological: the environmental cause is real, but the novel is more interested in the psychology of men who need extreme action to feel alive than in the politics of wilderness preservation.
Collecting A Good Day to Die
First edition (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1973): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $100–$250
- Very good: $40–$100
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
Ecological Road Novel
A Good Day to Die (1973) is Harrison’s second novel — a wild, drug-and-alcohol-fueled road trip in which three characters drive from Key West to the Grand Canyon to blow up a dam that is destroying a trout stream. The novel is part ecological manifesto, part buddy narrative, and part self-destructive odyssey. Harrison’s prose is raw and propulsive. The novel was admired by fellow writers (Thomas McGuane, who shared Harrison’s Montana world) but sold modestly. First editions are uncommon.
Frequently Asked Questions
How does this compare to Legends of the Fall? It is rawer, more chaotic, and less controlled. The anarchic energy that Harrison would later harness in the novellas is here in a wilder, less disciplined form. It is a young writer’s book, for better and worse.