Nothing but Blue Skies (ISBN 0679747788)

Absolutely enjoyable.:
I simply can not stop reading this book. Since buying it, I have reread it so many times that I will soon need to buy a new copy. If you are looking for a novel that is funny, sad, moving, painful, unforgetable, very readable, and unbelievably enjoyable, then get this book. My only warning is that you will soon need to buy a new copy for display.

Difficult to put down.:
McGuane is easily among our most talented contemporary authors. There were times that I caught myself laughing out-loud as well as smiling at truly remarkable descriptions written with such skill that I felt as if I were standing in a river somewhere in Montana. He is able to pull the reader into his world of complex and entertaining characters that operate in an equally wonderful backdrop of Montana's ranches, rivers, and small towns. If you are a fan of other McGuane titles such as "Nobody's Angel" and "Keep the Change" you will not be disappointed with "Nothing but Blue Skies." I can't think of higher praise than to be truly sad to turn the last page and realize that such a beautifully and skillfully written story is over.

Nice Read, worth your time:
This was my first, but will not be my last, novel by Thomas McGuane. Frank Copenhaver, the central character, has hit a rough patch in his life. His anchors have left him. In the opening scene he is taking his wife to the airport. She is leaving him. After some brief background info, McGuane lays before us a man who's life is torn out from underhim and who doesn't really seem to know how to get back on track. Ultimately it is a story of betrayal, love and relationships. Husband and wife and daughter. In between there are great descriptions of Montana flyfishing. Although not as good as The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, this book does come pretty close.

Great stuff:
Thomas McGuane is a remarkably gifted writer and here he is at the top of his form. This book captures the beauty and the tragedy of the west, is full of characters who are real and pathetic and loveable and maddening. The territory of Western pathos and failed relationships covered briliantly by Richard Ford, but McGuane in this book brings a consistent over the top humor and sense of the ridiculous which distinguishes him sharply from Ford. Picaresque bar fights alternate with lyrical descriptions of the fishing streams of Montana, the protagonist's series of soulless affairs constrasts sharply with his desperate love for the wife who has left him. The book is fascinating, and beautiful, and terribly funny.

Take that fork!:
This is the funniest novel I've read since finishing Don Quixote sometime last month. I feel I ought to single out for particular notice Chapter 34, wherein a drunken Frank abducts Lucy and precipitates a riotous vehicular escapade. This episode constitutes about as polished a piece of comedy as I've ever encountered in any of the books I have read and, like I said, I've just finished Don Quixote. Ozell's revision of the translation of Peter Motteux as a matter of fact. Take my word for it, the unfairly maligned Motteux puts Tobias Smollett in the crapper. For what it's worth, Mister McGuane actually alludes to Cervantes' great masterwork twice during the course of his own inimitable relation: once a tad obliquely, when Frank briefly visits Alaska and is tossed in a blanket by a bunch of tanked-up Eskimos, recalling Sancho Panza's similar treatment outside the Inn at the hands of four Segovia Clothiers, three Cordova Point-makers, and two Seville Hucksters, all brisk, gamesome, arch fellows; and once rather more directly, when a Buick Frank had purchased from June is described as being as loose-jointed and ungainly as Rozinante. Well it's all a circle really, isn't it?