Synopses & Reviews
Set in Key West the nation's extreme limit this is the story of a man seeking refuge from a world of drug addiction by becoming a skiff guide for tourists even though a tough competitor threatens to kill him.
Review
"Full of surprises and rewards and an exhilaration one feels only rarely....I offer a gentle exhortation please read this book." Newsday
Review
"Thomas McGuane makes the page, the paragraph, the sentence itself a record of continuous imaginative activity....He is an important as well as a brilliant novelist." The New York Times Book Review
Review
"Few writers have explored our national malaise as persistently or as elegantly as Thomas McGuane, a writer whose command of the language has helped define our American loneliness." Philadelphia Inquirer
Review
"McGuane's sense of place, his harsh and delicate exactness of detail are at their keenest." Newsweek
Synopsis
NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NOMINEE - A stunning novel about a deadly rivalry in Key West from the acclaimed author of Cloudbursts. McGuane has constructed a novel with the impetus of a thriller and the heartbroken humor that is his distinct contribution to American prose.
Tiring of the company of junkies and burn-outs, Thomas Skelton goes home to Key West to take up a more wholesome life. But things fester in America's utter South. And Skelton's plans to become a skiff guide in the shining blue subtropical waters place him on a collision course with Nichol Dance, who has risen to the crest of the profession by dint of infallible instincts and a reputation for homicide.
Thomas McGuane makes the page, the paragraph, the sentence itself a record of continuous imaginative activity.... He is an important as well as a brilliant novelist. --The New York Times Book Review
About the Author
Thomas McGuane lives in Sweet Grass County, Montana. He is the author of eight previous novels and a collection of stories, as well as two collections of essays.