Book Review - The Cadence of Grass

Long hours at my father's hospital bedside provides many hours to read, and after reading the newest Thomas McGuane novel recently, I went back and read his previous one in its entirety yesterday.

The Cadence of Grass (238 pages, 2002), is the story of a dysfunctional Montana family who are forced to deal with each other more than they would like based on the unusual conditions of the patriarch's last will and testament. The jacket blurb notes "McGuane's trademark combination of high wit, low behavior, and hard-won wisdom." There certainly is plenty of low behavior, and this darkly comic novel delves pretty deeply into the uglier side of peoples' motivations and behavior. All of this is set against the usual Montana ranching backdrop and a supporting cast of well-drawn characters.

So my streak of books with hopeful happy endings ends at one. But this was an engrossing read. 3.5 stars out of 5, maybe closer to 4.

"As she said this, she felt the room grow distant and time awkwardly slow. She couldn't for the moment understand why saying her own name aloud made her loneliness so evident that it nearly choked her. Now all funny thoughts had fled. She looked at her young dance partner and wondered if he yet understood that all the cures for loneliness failed, that it was a chronic state and that anything used to anesthetize it turned into its own problem." [p. 78]

"She was silent for a long moment, then added with searing conviction, "I may be the wrong person for my own life." [p. 210]

Books read this year: 26 [totalling 5,990 pages]
Published in 2010: still 16
New authors: still 15
Classics: still 3

I may read another McGuane next; I'm on a roll...