The Member-Guest [Hardcover]

Clint McCown (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

A series of interconnected short stories is set in a tiny middle-American town during a country club's annual golf tournament and recounts the experiences of the town members as they struggle with lost dreams, divorce, careers, and more. Tour.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Life has not turned out quite as expected for the quietly dysfunctional, middle-American folks involved in a small-town country club's annual member-guest golf tournament. In 10 interconnected stories, McCown penetrates the lives of club employees, members and guests, revealing a plethora of colorful foibles as his characters cope with mounting restlessness and disappointment. Rod, the golf pro who never quite made it on the PGA tour-or in his marriages-is at the center of the collection, growing more reckless by the day, both at work and in his love life. Bev, who runs the snack bar, has been cheating on her husband, who for his part has been stealing the club's golf carts for extra cash. Lyle, a real-estate agent, will host a pre-tournament clambake in hopes of drumming up business, but his wife will wind up angrily sabotaging the all-male event-by filling the course holes with cement. Meanwhile, hustler Ed Betzger is sleeping with other men's wives, and the club's senile founder is keeping six noisy mules in the yard of his large, course-front home. McCown gently exploits the humor in his stories without succumbing to farce. With wise, often lyrical prose and an eye for striking, illustrative detail, he brings his characters to life in a book-length debut that's as imaginative as it is memorable.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

McCown's impressive first novel consists of ten interrelated stories all set shortly before, during, or after a golf tournament at a second-rate country club. Beginning with a portrait of a bungling but spirited club pro, McCown offers richly comic profiles of aspiration and frustration. The club founder, a wealthy Cadillac dealer, evokes his youth but alienates his neighbors by filling his backyard with mules. A local real estate agent shoots arrows through his house in an attempt to exterminate pigeons without offending his wife. McCown's episodic narration offers several delights. By including the protagonists of early stories as minor characters in later ones, he neatly plots the crucial intersections of small-town society. By leaving obvious lacunae between stories, he keeps the reader eager to know more. Recommended for all collections.
Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; 1st edition (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385476558
• ISBN-13: 978-0385476553
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,854,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Clint McCown was born in Fayetteville, TN, but grew up in Birmingham, AL and Gettysburg, PA. The son of a Secret Service agent, in his teens he was yardboy for former President Dwight D. Eisenhower. After graduating from Wake Forest University, he studied acting at the Circle-in-the Square in NYC and subsequently toured with the National Shakespeare Company and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre. He worked as a broadcast journalist in 1978 and received the Associated Press Award for Documentary Excellence for his investigations of Organized Crime and political corruption. After receiving his MFA from Indiana University, where he served as editor of Indiana Review, he taught for 20 years at Beloit College, where he also served as founding editor and publisher of the Beloit Fiction Journal. Several of his plays have been produced; he has worked as a screenwriter for Warner Bros. and a Creative Consultant for HBO television. He is currently head of the MFA program at Virginia Commonwealth University and a faculty member for the Vermont College of Fine Arts low-residency MFA program. His novels include The Member-Guest, War Memorials, and The Weatherman; his poetry collections include Sidetracks, Labyrinthiad, Wind Over Water, and Dead Languages. The only two-time winner of the American Fiction Prize, he is also a past recipient of the Society of Midland Authors Award, the S. Mariella Gable Prize, an Academy of American Poets Prize, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers designation, a Distinction in Literature citation from the Wisconsin Library Association, the Germaine Bree Book Award, an NEA grant, and three Pulitzer nominations. His stories, poems, and essays have appeared widely.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars McCown's novel is marvelously character-centered., June 9, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Gurnee, Illinois) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Member-Guest (Hardcover)

This novel is a joy: perceptive, witty, slightly off-kilter. McCown's character-centered fiction will evoke a wry smile of satisfaction from all readers capable of appreciating its sly sense of humor, its subtly tinted satiric method. McCown's humor is never at the expense of compassion. And, once you have marvelled at this novel, try McCown's poetry as well; it offers the same graceful, taut language which we have come to expect from this author.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I know these people!, October 28, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Lexington, KY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Member-Guest (Hardcover)

I know these people! McCown's characters, while seemingly absurd, reflect familiar traits that you will associate with the local country club swells. The base motivations are all here - greed, love and lust - framed by a sense of quiet desperation. A pinch of Pynchon, a touch of Crews and a dash of McGuane, we need to hear more from this author.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great fiction; great comedy, January 13, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Member-Guest (Hardcover)

Entertaining and witty. McCown's characters are well-developed, and however absurd and comical, they are also real.