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Executive Times |
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2006 Book Reviews |
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Gallatin
Canyon by Thomas McGuane |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Characters Thomas McGuane’s first short story collection in twenty years, Gallatin
Canyon, presents ten stories that excel at calling attention to
characters who are flawed and struggling. McGuane’s
close attention to the emotional depth that remains beneath the surface makes
each story powerful in its own way. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of
the story titled, “Old Friends,” pp. 44-46: John
Briggs was made aware of the fact that some sort of problem existed for his
friend and former schoolmate Erik Faucher by sheer
coincidence. A request for news came from the class secretary, Everett Hoyt,
who had in the thirty years since they’d graduated from Yale hardly set foot
out of Hoyt phoned John Briggs at
his summer home, in “I have heard through
private sources that our class scofflaw is now headed your way” Briggs waited for the
giggle to subside. “I certainly hope so,” he snapped. “I’ve missed Erik.” But
he began to worry that Erik might actually come. “See what you can do,” Hoyt
sang. “I don’t understand that
remark, “Perhaps it will come to
you.” “I’ll let you know if it
does.” Faucher’s ex-wife, Carol, called around five in
the morning, having declined to account for the time change. “How very nice
to hear your voice,” said Briggs, producing a cold laugh from Carol. “How are you?” “I’m calling about Erik. He
has not been behaving sensibly at all, some very odd things to say the
least.” Briggs absorbed this in
silence. He knew if he said anything at all, he’d have to stand up for Faucher, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to. “Carol, you’ve been
divorced a long time,” he said finally. “We have mutual interests.
I don’t know what sort of plan he has in place. And there’s “I’m sure he’s made a very
sensible plan.” “I don’t want “I don’t think we should
argue.” This was in response to her tone. “Did I say we should? I’m
saying, Help. I’m saying, It’s about time you did.”
When Briggs failed to reply, she added, “I know where he’s going and who to
put on his trail.” Briggs’s friendship with Faucher had been long and intermittent. Arbitrarily
assigned as roommates at the boarding school they’d attended before Yale,
they had become lifelong friends without ever getting over the fact that
their discomfort with each other occasionally boiled over into detestation.
Sometime earlier they had been sold loyalty much as the far-fetched basics of
religion are sold to the credulous. When Briggs was in his twenties and had
sunk everything into a perfectly legitimate though very small mining company
in Alberta with excellent long-term prospects but ruinously expensive
short-term requirements, Erik rescued him from bankruptcy by finding a buyer
who bought Briggs out at a price that restored his investment and even gave
him a small profit to accompany this dangerous lesson. Erik explained that
he’d had to waste a valuable quid pro quo on this and waved his finger in
Briggs’s face. When Erik was pulled from
the second story of a burning whorehouse on assignment for UNESCO as part of
a Boston Congregationalists’ outreach to hungry Guatemalans, Briggs made a
desperate stand to keep the matter out of the newspapers and saw that
nettlesome citations on his dossier were expunged. Against these decades of
loyalty, they seemed to search for an unforgivable trait in each other that
would relieve them of this abhorrent, possibly lifelong burden. But now they
had years of continuity to contend with, and it was
harder and harder to visualize a liberating offense. “I’m glad you called,” he
said to Erik, while holding a watering can over the potted annuals in his
front window “Everyone else has said you’re headed this way” “Everyone else? Like who?” “Like Carol, the vulgar
shrew you took to your heart.” “Carol? I don’t know how
she tracks my movements.” “And things are not so well
just now?” “Oh, bad, John. It’s not
wrong to claim the end is in sight.” His voice struck Briggs like a saw “I do wish this came at a
better time. I’m on a short holiday myself, the theory being rest is
indicated—” “I won’t be any trouble.” “Is that so?” You can almost feel the rising emotions
in this dialogue, but the containment within. Gallatin
Canyon is a great collection, meant to be savored one story at a time.
One or two are not up to the level of the others, but you won’t know that
until you’ve finished Gallatin
Canyon. Steve Hopkins,
November 20, 2006 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the December
2006 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Gallatin
Canyon.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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