Keep the Change [Hardcover]

Thomas McGuane (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1989

An American odyssey - one man's picaresque quest for his roots and his rightful inheritance, involving sex, slapstick violence and romance. The author's previous novels include "The Sporting Club" and "The Bushwacked Piano", and he has also written a collection of short stories.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

If McGuane's reputation as one of America's most clearsighted, acutely observant writers was in any doubt during the five-year pause since his last novel, his newest work should confirm his status and win him new admirers. Rangy and generous but also intensely personal, his narrative tracks Joe Starling from his father's Montana ranch to a lazy life in Key West and then back again, as he decides to approach middle age by examining the relationships and ties of his youth. Starling is a blocked painter and a reluctant cowboy; smart and lonely, he struggles to find purpose and maintain honor, not always successfully. Complicating matters are family ghosts (some alive, some not), financial crises and, above all, the two women in his life--one a boyhood love now married to his rival, the other a self-described "trashy-mouth Cuban who doesn't appreciate him" but does love him. McGuane makes what could have been an indecipherable personal quest into a vivid, even suspenseful story, in language that seems to have been stripped clean of excess, reduced to only the most evocative descriptions and accurate emotions. Even for a writer of his standing, a novel as unfaltering as this one is a rarity. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Joe Starling leaves his family's Montana ranch as a teenager, attending Yale and later becoming a successful painter in New York. Now in a state of emotional and spiritual disarray, he returns, hoping to lay claim to the run-down ranch and "find a restored coordination for his life" in the old values of hard work and closeness to the land. But his romantic notions run aground on the realities of the modern West: He ultimately loses the ranch to his mad Uncle Smitty's scheming and discovers the duplicity of the seemingly innocent Ellen, the ranch owner's daughter he romanced one summer and now longs to return to. Satire and sadness mingle in this low-key, yet resonant, novel as Joe learns the truth of an old American proverb: You can't go home again.
- Lawrence Rungren, Bedford Free P.L., Mass.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 230 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin/Seymour Lawrence; 1st edition (August 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0395488877
• ISBN-13: 978-0395488874
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,269,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The romance of the West debunked . . ., December 21, 2004

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Keep the Change (Paperback)

While Montana is cast as "the last best place" by many of its writers, McGuane seems to see the place as a land of lost hope and illusion. Knee deep in ironies, the story turns in many ways on a faded painting in an abandoned ranch house that Joe, the main character, remembers from boyhood. Grown up now and a painter himself, who doesn't paint anymore, he abandons a Cuban girlfriend in Florida and fetches up after a cross country drive at the old home ranch to spend a season fattening cattle for market while having no faith that much of anything will happen to give his life any direction or purpose.

While most of this story takes place in Montana and most of its characters are nominally Montanans, they seem unmoored not only to the land but to any reason for being there. Those who come from elsewhere tire of it and leave. Those who would leave can't. Only a land-hungry rancher Overstreet seems to have a purpose in life, and it's clearly an empty one - buying up more land.

An old girlfriend figures in the story, and her jealous husband, and there are family members who are able to betray each other, and do. The relations between men and women swing wildly between romance and erotic encounters to bitterness. Greed lurks darkly everywhere. It's a vision not unlike the one in Larry McMurtry's "Texasville." His Duane is a distant cousin of Joe, and it's easy to imagine Jeff Bridges in a movie version of the story - beleaguered and wryly puzzled by what's become of his life. I recommend this novel to anyone ready for an anti-romance about the West, which questions - often humorously and outrageously - most of what the West has stood for in the American imagination.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quirky, well written book worth a look, September 7, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Keep the Change (Paperback)

I picked this up at yard sale for a quarter, so my expectations were pretty low. At first, I thought it was flaky, but after I got into it, it's really quite funny with very sharp dialogue and memorable characters. An interesting view of the modern West, without sentimentality. Joe Starling is a womanizing artist, who can't keep out of trouble with women or his pants zipped so to speak. He returns home to Montana imagining getting back to his roots, but women problems and family problems derrail his plans.

If there is a flaw, it's that Joe is completely unbelievable as a painter -- it just seems like a device to work into the story. He doesn't talk or act like an artist, nor does the beauty of Big Sky country cause him to do as much as break out a pencil to sketch all through the novel. The author might just as well have made him a used car salesman.

But the dialogue is sharp and funny, and his raunchy misadventures with old girlfriend Ellen and live-in lover Astrid have a nice sexy charge to them.

A different kind of novel and one I would probably re-read just to enjoy the quality of the writing.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A delightful, humorous "impossible to put down type of book", August 30, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Carmel, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Keep the Change (Paperback)

"Thomas McGuane lives here" I was told last year during a Montana visit. "Who cares?" say I, never having heard of him. Oh, how I wish I had known, wish I had read this wonderful book and taken the time to visit Mr. McGuane and thank him for wonderful vacation reading a year later. Raced through this book; raced back to the bookstore for "Some Horses", embarked on "An Outside Chance" and contemplated sending Mr. McGuana a fan letter! Seldom does a book make me laugh out loud and have to put it down until I recover. This book is delightful and you wonder how anyone can possibly think up a story like this.