The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw [Paperback]

Patrick F. McManus (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 1990

More witty cautionary tales of outdoor life, by everybody's favorite expert on the subject, Patrick F. McManus.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw is a delightful treasury of McManus's favorite (mostly outdoor) adventures with friends. His stories explore the human capacity to laugh in the face of misfortune, such as "The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw" (Goombaw is Eddie Muldoon's grandmother) and "The Fried Flies, Please, and Easy on the Garlic," a story of dinner-party adversity:

[CODE] "Martha starts. 'I do hope you won't take offense, Mr. McGinnis, but I view hunters as the lowest form of life, not excluding bacteria and algae.' 'No offense taken,' I reply, glad for an excuse to ignore my vichyssoise, which I view as the lowest form of food, not excluding lichens and boiled beets." [CODE] American humorist Patrick McManus could make being snagged by a fishhook funny, and in fact, he does. In his story "Getting It in the Ear," he writes, "One of the more interesting things that can happen to an angler is to get a barbed hook sunk into his hide. Such is the horror and fascination of the experience that many an angler has contemplated giving up his regular work and hitting the lecture circuit to entertain audiences around the nation with a dramatic rendering of his ordeal." After all, he argues, it's the misery endured that defines the sportsman, not the fish caught or the game shot. McManus's understated, matter-of-fact vignettes--infused with amusing glimpses of life's lesser-known eternal truths-- will make you laugh.

From Publishers Weekly

McManus ( The Grasshopper Trap ) has been making outdoorsmen laugh for some time now, but his new collection of writing passes a sterner test. Here he can amuse someone who's never even baited a hook. McManus's stories generally involve either the comic misadventures of life in the wild ("A Road Less Travelled By"; "Gunkholing"; "Water Spirits") or first-person coming-of-age stories set in rural America ("The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw"; "Scritch's Creek"). His comic voice, resonating with a surprising depth of wit, is expressed in a pleasant, quirky prose style--but shows a tendency to get cute. Characters cry "Owww!" and "Arrrhhhh" and "Arp!" incessantly and excessively, and the author indulges a fondness for italic type: "I . . . gasp . . . forgot my billfold. It's . . . pant . . . in my tackle box. Get it for me . . . choke . . . will you?" This talented writer doesn't need to poke readers in the ribs to let them in on the joke. Author tour.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 184 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (May 15, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805013407
• ISBN-13: 978-0805013405
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Night The Bear Ate Goombaw, March 21, 2005

By 

Mary L. Simons (Brooksville, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw (Paperback)

This book is hilarious. We like to read it to the middle and high school kids. You can hear them laughing about the fur coat, etc. outside the building. It has sparked many a boy into getting Partick's other books and reading for themselves. As a library director I know how hard it is to get middle and high school kids to read for pleasure. Patrick McManus is sure a pleasure. When I read the Goombaw story, and I have numerous times I still can not get through it without tears running down my face.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars always great always the same, May 21, 2001

By 

ty7777 "I don't give out m'name" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw (Paperback)

If you've read anything by Pat and laughed and would like a book or another book, trust me when I say that you'll like this. It's just more of the same kind of thing, Rancid and Crazy Eddie and Pat running around scaring his friend's Grandma. You can't read it or rememeber it without laughing or smiling, unless you're dead in which case you have no business having the nerve of reading or remembering anything. Trust me, there's nobody better than Pat out of all the humorist authors. Even Daniel Steele. You'll love it if you love anything he's done.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the best of McManus., July 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw (Paperback)

It's sometimes hard to read, tears of laughter mean you have to stop in the middle of the story to recompose yourself. Absolutely Great. The best short story teller this century. Mark Twain has been replaced.