eShop USA > Books > The Cadence of Grass
The Cadence of Grass
List Price: $13.00Our Price: $11.05 You Save: $1.95 (15%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Save $10.00 when you spend $50.00 or more on qualifying items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout.
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780679767459
ISBN: 0679767452
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: May 13, 2003
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: May 13, 2003
Studio: Vintage
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial 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
Sunny Jim Whitelaw, a descendent of pioneers and owner of a large bottling plant, may have died, but he has no intention of relinquishing control: his will specifies that no one gets a cent unless his daughter Evelyn reconciles with her estranged husband, Paul. But Evelyn is a strong-willed woman, fiercely attached to the land, whose horses transport her to a West she feels is disappearing, while Paul is a suave manipulator, without scruples, intent on living well. As played out on the majestic stage of Montana cattle country, the ensuing drama involves blood, money, sex, vengeance, and a cross-dressing rancher. The Cadence of Grass is renewed evidence that McGuane is one of the finest writers we have, capable of simultaneously burnishing and demolishing the mythology of the West while doing rope tricks with the English language.
In his first novel since his best-selling Nothing but Blue Skies, and thirty-three years after The Sporting Club established his reputation, Thomas McGuane's trademark combination of high wit, low behavior, and hard-won wisdom has never been on sharper -- or, ultimately, more moving -- display. This is the story of the Whitelaws, a family whose values are as far-flung as the territory they helped settle, and whose most recent generations have pioneered the landscape of dysfunction.The patriarch, Sunny Jim, exerts his perverse control even posthumously, by means of a last will and testament that binds the family fortune (a bottling franchise) to a marriage that ought, by general assent, to be rent asunder. The charms of this particular son-in-law, lately released from prison, are potent if short-lived; Evelyn Whitelaw, his estranged wife, is quite literally bedeviled by them. And as her mother and sister court this twisted inheritance, her own yearnings point toward a way of life once habitual on these western plains but now embodied only by Bill Champion, the family's ranch foreman and Evelyn's one true compass.A novel charged with the relentless and often contradictory claims of blood, money, history, and love, The Cadence of Grass is at once a masterpiece of savage comedy and an elegy for what has been lost. Long one of our most compelling novelists, Thomas McGuane has written the most ambitious book of his singularly distinguished career.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Cowboy Nostalgia
I had been hearing about Thomas McGuane for what felt like decades. Finally, a few days ago, I got the chance to read one of his books. The female characters were compelling, but the male characters were caricatures, which surprised me. There were only three types: the stoic, laconic "heroic" cowboy; the small-time hood; and the put-upon husband. The long passages displaying the author's familiarity with cowboy lore were VERY lazy writing-- and dull, dull, dull. There was some attempt at elegy...
Rating:  - Becoming Unbottled
Becoming Unbottled
THE CADENCE OF GRASS moves through the lives of the Whitelaw family who own a bottling company in Montana. After the death of the patriarch, Sunny Jim (who never smiled), the lives of the rest of the family shift as unpredictably as prairie grass in the wind. The uneven beat of the action and the jarring, Kafkaesque characters contribute to the uniqueness of the book. The characters are both weirder than life yet touchingly real, and McGuane is often laugh-out-loud funny. Stuart, ... Read More
Rating:  - Disappointing Finish
I read this book while spending some time out west. It has been awhile since I had read anything by McGuane. I enjoyed the characters and his prose. The story was compelling but the ending was disappointing. I'm not sure why he headed in that particular direction.
Rating: - Disappointing
I found this book to be very diappointing. The plot was not interesting and the characters were dull. I feel like I must have read a different book than that described in the positive reviews below. In any event, the writing at times is quite good , so maybe I'll try one of McGuane's prior works. This one certainly does not live up to its billing or his reputation.
Rating: - McGuane's Continued Growth, one of his best
I first discovered Thomas McGuane in a Paris Review interview in 1985. He is a man of eloquence of the type that answers to questions posed to him about his writing were so fascinating that I began immediately reading his entire body of work. So cherished are these novels in my cannon that I did not read them one right after another, but spread them out over years to properly savor each one. I would read Nobody's Angel, and delight in reliving it for a time, referring to it, quoting it, then when a year ... Read More
Related Categories:
| |
 |
