BRIEFLY NOTED.

Publication: The New Yorker

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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.

Returning to Earth, by Jim Harrison (Grove; $24). In this moving meditation on life and afterlife, a northern Michigan family confronts devastating illness and death. Donald, suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease and disinclined to lose any more control over his failing body, asks his family to assist him in suicide and to bury him in a remote spot in Canada. Although the themes and preoccupations of Native American religion--Donald is "over half Chippewa"--form the narrative's spine, Harrison's handling remains admirably unsentimental. Bears, ravens, and lilacs (symbols of mourning and...

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