- Paperback: 256 pages
- Publisher: Vintage; New edition edition (6 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099443694
- ISBN-13: 978-0099443698
- Product Dimensions: 12.8 x 1.8 x 19.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 581,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Cadence Of Grass
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Book Description
'A writer of the first magnitude-McGuane is a virtuoso' New York Times
Product Description
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 to a marriage that ought, by general consent, 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 bedevilled by them. And as her mother and sister court this twisted inheritance, her own yearnings point toward a way of life once habitual on the western plains but now embodied only by Bill Champion, the family's ranch foreman and Evelyn's one true compass. The Cadence of Grass is at once an elegy and a masterpiece of savage comedy from one of the most compelling novelists writing today. (20021018)
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
IN MOST WAYS, old man Whitelaw's funeral was just another scene in the family's life. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
IN MOST WAYS, old man Whitelaw's funeral was just another scene in the family's life. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
An original and beautifully-written novel set among the mountains and prairies of Montana which draws on many of the themes and mythology of the Old West that so fascinate Thomas McGuane. On the surface it's about a dysfunctional family (gold-digging brother-in-law, adulterous sister, eccentric widow) who come into conflict when the will of Sunny Jim Whitelaw throws up a clause that none of them bargained for. It's really a black comedy, the kind of novel with characters that are basically selfish and out for themselves, but who will eventually pay for their infidelities and crimes. And within the story is a moving twist concerning a long-buried family secret...
Beyond this, and what makes the book really great, is McGuane's conviction that the strong values and good hearts of the West have been eroded by what we call progress, and this is richly evoked in the climax which transcends the twisting plot and is one the reader perhaps wasn't expecting...
A fine novel, very funny, thoughtful, and beautiful to read.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
17 reviews
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
More Fun in the New West
11 Jun 2002
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
McGuane is my favorite novelist, mining territory that hits uncomfortably close to my own ranching, adulterous bones. Setting aside Larry McMurtry's dissipated and puzzling "review" of this book in a recent NY Review of Books, this is one of McGuane's more problematic novels. It is also his most interesting work in 12 years. It does not rival his best (Nobody's Angel) in either grim power or wit. Nevertheless, all the familiar ingredients are there - New West profiteers, doomed marriages, snowstorms on the Absarokas, suicides, revenge, the dead father figure with the endless shadow, and the tiring intra-family struggle for power with a capital "P." Maybe because these ingredients are ever-present we are starting to take McGuane's bleak elegance for granted.
The novel sputters a bit in the thoroughly rendered but self-indulgent hardcore cowboy scenes where the dignified old hand culls sick cows and tends to the calfing and generally displays a wealth of ranching motherwit that the average reader will find indecipherable. Hell, I run cattle and I found it distracting! What more than makes up for it are the razor-sharp exchanges between the characters and the sharply drawn quiet moments that fill the book.
My Uncle Wade loved this book. Not that my Uncle Wade is particularly well-read - and when I was a kid he took me to the Wyoming - Colorado State game and made me wet myself at the Circle K as a distraction to the clerk while he shoplifted beef jerky and tobacco. But my Uncle Wade knows Western Gothic. For my own self, I will just say that if you've ever spent a few fevered hours with your brother's wife at a Super 8, inoculated livestock on a Friday night, or hit someone with a pool cue, you will like this book.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Becoming Unbottled
15 Sep 2003
Format:Paperback
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, the disparaged and underestimated son-in-law is described as "simple enough to hide his own Easter eggs."
For a person who has been on a horse three times in her life and who has stood in a working barn once for five minutes (phew) the descriptions of such are a delight. I loved reading about draft horse stanchions, snaffles, Kelly Brothers grazers, offside billet straps and coppermouth John Israels, even though I have only the haziest idea as to what they are. And reading how Evelyn maneuvers her pony to work the cattle is as good as watching a gold medal figure skater.
McGuane is a first rate writer, a keen observer of humankind, and lover of the Montana country. THE CADENCE OF GRASS: a memorable read.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
The Cadence of Confusion
3 July 2002
Format:Hardcover
Having heard a review of this book on NPR I eagerly looked for it's arrival via post. Oh, the intrigue, conflict and ripe character development described on the radio...I could hardly wait. What I found was a disjointed story line about morally bankrupt individuals, save Evelyn, Bill & Stuart. What was McGuane trying to tell us? I am still trying to figure that one out.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
