Conversations with Thomas McGuane ed. by Beef Torrey, and: Gallatin Canyon by Thomas McGuane (review)

2 1 0 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e S u m m e r 2 0 0 8 sketches of these works—would be more believable if she were able to provide evidence of such an exchange. What nevertheless ensures the significance of Skaggs’s study is her refusal to be content with simply showing similarities between the two authors. She constantly searches for the cause of their banter and borrowing, and her proposition that “each aspired to be America’s greatest” writer is plausible (xv). As Skaggs acknowledges in her introduction, however, “The facts [about this relationship ] are skimpy” (xii). And while her readings of Cather and Faulkner are thorough and incisive—potentially changing the way these central American authors are understood—at times she seems to be reaching for a connection that in actuality is subtler than she desires it to be. Skaggs’s strength is also her weakness; her analysis proves fascinating and significant because of her insistence on a close and conscious link between Cather and Faulkner, but the lack of positive evidence connecting them weakens the credibility of Skaggs’s claims. She does qualify her causal links, but many of the supposed borrowings between Cather and Faulkner may not stem directly from their close readings of each other but from the common literary culture in which they wrote. Still, because Skaggs relentlessly seeks to portray an intentional discourse, she is able to paint a cohesive picture of what she perceives to be the interactions of Cather and Faulkner, and she proves the potential importance of her patient investigative work. Conversations with Thomas McQuane. Edited by Beef Torrey. Jackson: University Press of M ississippi, 2007. 224 pages, $50.00/$20.00. Qallatin Canyon. By Thomas McGuane. New York: Knopf, 2006. 240 pages, $24.00. Reviewed by Nancy S. Cook University of Montana, Missoula In his edited collection of interviews with Thomas McGuane, Beef Torrey has selected eighteen interviews from 1971 to 2005. The volume includes a list of McGuane’s published books, a detailed chronology of McGuane’s life, and an index. In the introduction, Toney summarizes themes that emerge from the interviews and characterizes McGuane as one who developed from “a lateblooming , underachieving boy to a cocksure ... adolescent... to a swashbuck­ ling, twenty-eight year old ... to a ‘Gonzo Cowboy’ ... to, finally, the ebullient and introspective sexagenarian still progressing toward the tantalizing closeness of wisdom” (xiv). Torrey also provides a very briefgloss on some of the publications in which interviews originally appeared. He advises his readers that the interviews “have not been altered. ... Consequently, there is some repetition, but this allows for McGuanes personality and reflections to come through unfiltered” (xvii). B O O K R EVIEW S While few readers are likely to read the book in one sitting, the repetition can be annoying, and the notion that the unedited material allows for an “unfiltered ” view of the writer is unfounded. Without any discussion of Toney’s prkv ciples of inclusion and exclusion, readers are left to wonder if these interviews were chosen based on permission fees, or if Torrey did not read all the profiles and interviews that have been published, or if these interviews present a ver­ sion of McGuane that fits Toney’s preconceived ideas. Given the extensive repetition, one wonders whether several interviewers did any research (such as read earlier interviews) at all. Moreover, given the chance to speak with someone as intellectually acute as McGuane, many inter­ viewers squander the opportunity by asking questions about his maniages, his drinking, or his work habits— queries that don’t allow readers to see McGuane really thinking. The well-read interviewer gets a great interview; the ill-prepared interviewer gets stock answers and McGuane’s forbearance. In collecting interviews with a writer who is known for his comic sensibil­ ity, Torrey fails to mention that the opening interview, conducted by writer Jim Harrison in 1971, is widely considered to be Harrison’s spoof of the typical literary interview. It is recognized as such by reviewers of Conversations withJim Harrison (2002), where it also starts...