Amazon.com Review
Thomas McGuane's
The Cadence of Grass is a brawling, barrel-chested novel full of irreverent humor and outrageous characters and situations. Set in Montana, the story begins with the funeral of Jim Whitelaw, the family patriarch, who has cunningly crafted a will that ties up the assets of his bottling company until his older daughter reconciles with her estranged rogue of a husband. With Jim's ditzy yet determined widow; his wild younger daughter and her sweet but unbalanced husband; a cross-dressing rancher; a missing kidney; and a mysterious Bengali, it all adds up to a wild ride. But it's Bill Champion, Jim Whitelaw's old ranching partner, who wins our hearts. A throwback to the old days, Bill is full of Western wisdom and pungent sayings--he defines a "coyote breakfast" as "a piss and a look around." Eventually, Bill reveals a surprising secret as well as the identity of Red Wolf. Like his previous novels, including
Nothing but Blue Skies,
Panama,
Ninety-Two in the Shade, and
The Bushwhacked Piano, McGuane's
The Cadence of Grass is a ripsnorting read indeed.
--Susan Biskeborn
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
McGuane has gone from Florida to Montana novelist, but his most famous novels still date from the beginning of his career. His latest has the hip feel of Panama, without the drugs and hallucinations. Sunny Jim Whitelaw is dead, but he continues to cast a shadow over his family's life. His will requires that his daughter Evelyn patch up her relationship with her no-good husband, Paul¢if she doesn't, the ownership and profits of Sunny Jim's Montana bottling plant will be lost. Though Evelyn's sister, Natalie, has had quality sex with Paul, she urges her sister to stay married for the good of the family; she herself is itching to divorce her dull husband Stuart. Handsome, treacherous Paul, ( infernal, as his parole officer/lover thinks of him) is barely a year out of prison when Sunny Jim dies and the Whitelaw family and all its wealth seems about to wind up in his lap. The prospect of this is bad enough, but Evelyn and Natalie also have to deal with the revelation that Bill Champion, Sunny Jim's old rancher/partner, means more to their mother, Alice, than they ever suspected. As a friend of Natalie's puts it, the times had turned against good-hearted party girls. The times have changed for small Montana ranchers like Bill Champion, too, whose involvement in one of Paul's deals is, predictably, a recipe for disaster. McGuane tells this story of the fall, or at least slump, of the house of Whitelaw in his trademark style, a balladic ramble through the consciousnesses of Evelyn, Natalie, Stuart and Paul. On the surface, McGuane's prose is all moral unflappability, but underneath there's clearly a nostalgia for a less self-indulgent culture, one in which people kept to their (preferably stoic) codes.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
