Thomas McGuane

Ran across this old Tom McGuane book, SOMETHING TO BE DESIRED (1985), at a library sale this spring and brought it home for old time's sake. First read his stuff back in the early 70s and adopted two of his books for a college class I was teaching, Modern Michigan Authors - THE BUSHWHACKED PIANO and NINETY-TWO IN THE SHADE. I enjoyed both of those books, and I think most of the students did too. I read a couple more McGuane books, but couldn't keep up with his prodigious output. Those two show more were about the outrageous hijinks of young men. This one features a mostly likeable middle aged anti-hero, Lucien Taylor, who has left his wife and young son, and his job as a USAI officer in the tropics, to pursue Emily, an old high school flame back in Montana who has shot and killed her abusive husband. Lucien puts up her bail, and she absconds to the south Pacific, leaving him in possession of her failing ranch, which, fortunately, has a sulphur spring with healing properties. He parlays this into a profitable tourist destination. A wealthy guest dies. His wife and son return to the picture. And soon so does Emily. It's complicated, and also pretty funny, as McGuane's trademark dry wit is much in evidence. It's hard to explain, so I'll drop a couple samples here. For example, the morning after a night of sexual carousing -

"Lying in bed, with late morning light on him, he thought the veins in his hands were too prominent, and his scalp itched. His previously clever mouth was a cup of variegated scum; and his poor old dick was a grim souvenir of infamy and inconsideration ... He staggered across the hall into the bathroom and sat down. His bowel movement was so shocking it sent his dog scurrying for cover as a blast of discolored water arced from his ass to the crockery."

That's classic McGuane. Here's a more tender moment, as Lucien observes his sleeping son -

"It seemed to Lucien that children took up great space when they were awake and then became so small when they fell asleep. James looked completely different because he did not wear his thick glasses. The odd way in which he hovered within his own clothes was replaced by a carelessness that relieved Lucien as he looked at the boy."

And so on and so on. It felt good to read some McGuane again. He, along with Jim Harrison and Dan Gerber, formed a triumvirate of young literary lions at MSU back in the late fifties. I still see his short stories occasionally in The New Yorker. Write on, Tom. I'm forty years late, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it highly.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER show less

An extensive collection of stories, most familiar, a few new ones; all worth reading. Having this many in one place reinforces the power, skill and grace of McGuane’s writing.

His characters, and they are characters in both senses, often seemingly act against their own interest, often profoundly against their own interest, usually in service of not taking any shit. They lose love and opportunities, often in a harrowing and heart-breaking manner.

McGuane can characterize someone in a show more sentence: “The Mayor came to the table with the vibrant merry hustle with which he drew all attention to himself.”

“The Refugee” and “Papaya” are two linked stories, one familiar, the other new and welcome. Both feature Errol Healy. In the first he’s a citrus grove foreman with a drinking problem who sails to Key West to be saved by a “good witch” but ends up on a much longer voyage. The second continues his story (his name is pronounced air-roll in the Bahamas) and stretches it out further.

McGuane delves into ambiguous morality and gray areas of behavior. A worthy collection. show less

I largely avoid fly fishing coffee table books. The problem? Fly fishing picture books typically attain a kind of artificial beauty, and do so at the expense of spontaneity, realism or soul.

Images are carefully arranged, styled and colored - to the point I’m witnessing the product of an advertising shoot instead of a real moment on the water.

This book avoids those problems. Want the one-word review? Stunning.

Lindsay’s black and white photographs bypass all the pretty-yet-distant cliches, show more displaying in their stead strong, reductive images where the elements of nature (water, air, fire, bugs, trout, etc) are dynamic - not fodder for a carefully arranged still life.

Through Lindsay’s lens, water becomes elemental and kinetic, with the surface boundary between air and stream displaying elements of both.

Trout ebb and flow through his photographs like elements of nature instead of targets, defined not by flashy parr marks or marketable colors, but revealed instead by a quiet swirl in the water or a taut piece of monofilament.

McGuane’s text is smart and cutting as ever, his status as keen observer of the natural world seemingly amplified by the B&W photographs.

Indeed, viewing McGuane’s text and Lindsay’s photographs in the same context exposes one of the book's weaknesses - the images and words aren’t mixed together on the same pages, but are separated.

Many of Lindsay’s images would have piled meaning atop McGuane’s text (and vice versa), but instead, McGuane’s incisive words were left to fend for themselves, including the following passage - which would have soared off the page in the company of the right images. show less

In short, Nicholas Payne is a rogue hovering at the edge of adult life, reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. We are to understand he is a big and not bad-looking fellow, that he likes risky ventures which going to work in his Dad's law firm definitely will not provide. So he's rebelling. It is sometime in the 1960's (the novel was written in 1971) and Nick is more or less a candidate for the Merry Pranksters, but he missed that bus and is doing his best to make his own party. I 'discovered' show more McGuane some time ago, and although somehow I haven't worked my way through his ouevre, I've enjoyed every novel or short story of his I have picked up and this is no exception. The plot such as it is, involves a pretty but probably unattainable (at least in his present mood) girl, and a man with only one leg and one arm who has come up with a scheme to build huge bat towers to take care of mosquito problems..... yes..... really. It's a clue, innit, that the plot is just a vehicle to take you on a ride with Nick. The thing is McGuane is a superlative collector of odd information, punctilious detail (there is a fabulous rodeo scene) and of American regional talk, so it's a fun ride if you just allow yourself to let go and hang on. Oh and Nick has terrible hemorrhoids. Just in case you don't get it that he is an ... ****

Seriously though, NOT for everyone. If you love Pynchon and Wallace and that ilk you'll like McGuane, if not, you won't. show less