"Set in Thomas McGuane's accustomed Big Sky country, with its mesmeric powers, these stories attest to the generous compass of his fellow feeling, as well as to his unique way with words and the comic genius that has inspired comparison with Twain and Gogol. The ties of family make for uncomfortable binds: A devoted son is horrified to discover his mother's antics before she slipped into dementia. A father's outdoor skills are no match for an ominous...

The unforgettable voyager of this dark picaresque is I. B. "Berl" Pickett, MD, whose die was probably cast the moment his mother thought to name him after Irving Berlin. Other insults piled on apace thereafter: the spasms of Pentecostal Sunday worship; the social debilitation of following his parents' itinerant rug-shampooing business; the erotic initiation at the hands of his aunt. It's hard to imagine what would have become of him had he not gone...

"From one of our most acclaimed writers, a sumptuous gathering of his singular work in the short form, including seven new stories--nothing short of a literary event For more than four decades, Thomas McGuane has been heralded as an unrivaled master of the short story. Now the arc of that achievement appears in one definitive volume: thirty-eight stories drawn from his much-lauded previous collections, and another seven entirely new pieces appearing...

The daughter of late Whitelaw patriarch Sunny Jim finds herself bound by his will to a marriage with a man she no longer loves, as she is drawn to a simpler life as exemplified by the Whitelaw's ranch manager, Bill Champion.