A Wooded Shore - by Thomas McGuane (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

From the award-winning "master of the short story" (The New York Times Book Review)--nine shattering, hilarious tales of men on the outskirts of America, habituating the motels, hot dog stands, and dive bars time forgot, grappling with a world that is swiftly changing, and dreaming of a return to the wooded shores of their youth

In these nine peerless stories, a family boating trip veers into emotional disaster while very narrowly avoiding the physical; a would-be cheater hands over his car--his prized possession--for a shot with a pretty girl; a furniture magnate and his filmmaker daughter visit his impoverished hometown; a doctor's long-ago affair returns with a bitter pill. Crackling with wry humor, shot through with both wisdom and pain, these are stories of grifters and dreamers, of the lovelorn and the lawless, stories of the ongoing dissonance between the lives we want and the lives this world will allow.

Review Quotes

"[A] stellar collection . . . . McGuane's ruminative protagonists are frequently preoccupied by mortality and the strange ways their lives have turned out . . . . As always, McGuane stuffs his stories with offbeat plots, as when an insurance salesman's life changes after he rescues a cat from a burning house, and darkly funny moments, such as a character dying from a dream . . . . McGuane is one of America's greatest living writers."
--Publishers Weekly, *starred review*

"This slim collection from the Montana master seems like . . . a coda to his prolific career . . . . Provides plenty of bleak comedy . . . . The concluding title story is the longest and perhaps the darkest, as a river trip fraught with tension and peril reveals the dysfunction of a tycoon's family. Flinty and sharp-edged, these stories show no sign that the octogenarian McGuane is softening up."
--Kirkus

About the Author

THOMAS MCGUANE lives on a ranch in McLeod, Montana. He is the author of ten novels, including the National Book Award-nominated Ninety-two in the Shade, three works of nonfiction, and four collections of stories. His work has won numerous awards, including the Rosenthal Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has been anthologized in The Best American Stories, The Best American Essays, and The Best American Sports Writing.