Wolf (1971)

Jim Harrison's first novel, subtitled A False Memoir, sends its narrator Swanson into the wilderness of northern Michigan in the hope of glimpsing one of its rare wild wolves, between long bouts of remembering heatless Manhattan apartments, nameless women and drunken nights, as the jacket puts it. He gives his name on the first pages as Swanson, a name issued to his Swedish grandfather at Ellis Island. (Open Library)

Watches

Wittnauer watch: Lying on the couch of a girl named Laurie, a delicatessen counter girl on the East Side, Swanson remembers how he met her: on his first trip east he had a letter of recommendation to a congressman and meant to go to Washington, but got sidetracked in Philadelphia, pawned his high-school graduation Wittnauer and came on to New York. The pawned graduation watch, unnamed, is recalled twice more, on pp. 26 and 182; the watch is remembered, not worn in the narrative. The maker is named; the model is not.

Source text: But I got sidetracked in Philadelphia and pawned my high school graduation Wittnauer watch and came to New York City. (Jim Harrison, Wolf, scan cataloged as Dell, 1981, pp. 165 to 166, a sentence across the page break; his name is given on p. 12 and in the exchange on p. 165; Open Library dates the first edition 1971 and the Dell copyright page calls its edition a reprint by arrangement with the author; Internet Archive scan OCR)