In "Legends of the Fall," the title piece and best of Jim Harrison's collection of three novellas—and it seems fair to rank them good, better and best—the usual way of combining intensity and breadth is discarded with engaging recklessness. In place of a single point of view and a restriction of time, place, number of scenes and characters, Mr. Harrison delivers, in 87 pages, a complete two-generation family saga….

The opening line establishes both the voice and the manner of the epic storyteller, who deals in great vistas and vast distances….

There are tragedies, accidental and inflicted, a vendetta against Tristan [the protagonist] by Irish mobsters, insanity—enough melodrama for a thousand-page novel. Yet in a novel, these events might seem too many and too much. In "Legends of the Fall," the steady, singing, epic voice assures and reassures us that we are hearing—as the title...