Something to Be Desired (Vintage Contemporaries)

A Thomas McGuane novel is like a hearty western breakfast on the range, except that the bacon portion is sliced from the gamey ass of a dead Sasquatch. That probably doesn't make much sense unless you've read McGuane--and maybe still doesn't even if you have. McGuane's quirky sense of reality is so on-point that it somehow it all comes out seeming surreal. It's like Tom Bodett left the light on for Salvador Dali. What McGuane typically does--and I can say this now because I've read three of his al A Thomas McGuane novel is like a hearty western breakfast on the range, except that the bacon portion is sliced from the gamey ass of a dead Sasquatch.

What McGuane typically does--and I can say this now because I've read three of his alternately frustrating and effervescent novels--is chronicle the maddening journey of male protagonists hell-bent on self-destruction. McGuane's men long for lives that resemble a placid pool but who nonetheless run without breaking stride toward a jump into class-six rapids. They know that they're doing wrong, but the logic of the moment always seems to favor madness.

McGuane's protagonists strive for redemption by taking the long, circuitous, arduous path of hedonism. The path to the right is rarely certain, and, in McGuane's hands never preachy or moralistic. When McGuane picks up clay, he sculpts a subject beautifully perfect in its grotesquerie. The novel begins around on the Montana homestead of the Taylor clan. There, young Lucien Taylor tries to live the life of a normal American boy despite the dysfunctions in his parents' rocky marriage. Not surprisingly, he grows to inherit many of his father's eccentricities and tendencies to ramble or follow his dick in the direction of the nearest willing snatch.

This tendency proves nearly ruinous when he throws over the potentially idyllic family life with his beautiful patient wife, Suzanne, and their young son, James, in order to help an old flame in distress, Emily, a woman who may be even more erratic than himself in her habit of shooting down dead any man who crosses her. The unreliable Emily runs off again with a lover, in the process deeding over her Deadrock, Montana, ranch to the impoverished Lucien, who gets a brainstorm one day and turns it into a lucrative health resort built around a natural hot springs--the site of Lucien and Emily's first lovemaking.

In the complications that ensue, Lucien tries to bond with his estranged wife and son, and finds himself in an affair with a bored local housewife, Dee, whose husband manages to extort hush money from Lucien at shotgun point--and a promise to pay the cuckolded husband to install seamless gutters at the resort, a technological miracle that, of course, does not keep the leaves out of the gutters as promised. The premise and story of this novel are slight in the extreme, but it's the beauty of McGuane's artfully hewn sentences and oddly humorous and sharp observational sense that give the reader such pleasure.

He is one of the masters of enviromental description and the wry turn of phrase. Some of my favorite passages from the book: The town crouched in front of the terrific mountains to the south, great wildly irregular peaks that seemed to say to the little town, Don't try anything. The laughter and toasts that came from the house now seemed like a home team faithfully cheered for a bad loss. She cooked at the brandings and made eyes at the ropers. She read love comics and used her Chapstick as if it was a cigarette, and she was about as dumb as a stick.

She lived at Parade Rest Trailer Park, which is no more than a breeding pen, and she was stick-ass dumb. He had benign thoughts for the man, now doubtlessly gone, who had dreamed up those appalling flowers for the linoleum factory. Could he have known what a half century's muddy boots and all that domestic abrasion would do to his bright flowers? He drank as much coffee as fast as he could and watched a two-by-four opening at the end of the room where the young girls danced together to a jukebox.

Their movements were strange and formal, glassy and distant; and everything wonderful about their bodies was under twenty-four months old. He thought if dismounting were given the same importance in sex as it is in horsemanship, this would be a happier world. He walked along while the deep cold made a bas-relief map of his own skull, exposing bone through flesh and reminding him that cold, not heat, is the natural order.

But he was growing calm; calm at first in defeat and in the drifting lethargy that defeat produces. Now he hated his feet, which were white paddles.

Related Articles

They were not the honest arched dusky feet of the world's real people. They were the splayed white paddes of the superfluous. Apart from the obvious, it had begun making two streams during urination, one for the bowl, the other filling his shoe or starting him upon an unwelcome dance; often, too, it saved a final spurt for when it had been returned to his pants The last ten percent of her looks were still there to extrapolate the loss from.

He had seen hawks on the ground, graceless as extremely aged people, and he knew their world was sky. He'd seen old cowboys limp to their horses, then fly over the land, and he knew what their world was too. He wanted his own life to be as plain. Virgins are bores, he thought, like people with overpriced houses. It seemed to Lucien that children took up great space when they were awake and then became so small when they fell asleep. Lucien Taylor's road to maturity is paved with hurled tampons, nannies with odd sexual proclivities and other sundry incident that you might find in a backwoods Montana resort town.

Even as Lucien gets his shit together one is never sure up to the end of the book if he ever can or will, if he is fated to heedlessly make a muck of things, to forever knowingly commit stupidity as if drawn to it by some cosmic magnet. The book, at first, did not impress me, but as it moved along it enchanted me. McGuane is a magician, a master of language and creator of sentences that surprise you with a moonshine kick. And he's not above throwing in the inside joke or two. In one scene, two cowboys are debating an incident in the Steve McQueen western Tom Horn , the screenplay of which was written by McGuane.

Something to Be Desired

McGuane, I think, is one of the greatest living writers, based on the three novels I've read by him so far, but if you want to see how crazy he can get, I'd direct you to Panama first. Something to Be Desired is more genteel than that drug-addled book, but in its way is an excellent example of the author's art and craft.

Jan 25, David B rated it liked it. This slim volume tells the story of Lucien Taylor, a man who walked away from his family and then tried to work his way back. It is sporadically effective in its representation of a self-destructive man and has an honest resolution, but its minimalist style distanced me from the characters. At times, I also felt the Heavy Hand of Symbolism, as in the character of Emily, who is apparently meant to represent the lure of the dangerous unknown. Jun 15, Tony rated it liked it Shelves: McGuane almost had a novel here, but he soon got side-tracked by another effort.

I found it to be the least compelling of all of his novels. Again, it had its moments, but the moments were far between. Jun 15, John Benson rated it it was ok. I have heard of Montana author, Thomas McGuane, for many years but have never read any of his books before. The novel is about a man named Lucien, a man who at times becomes very successful, but also fails miserably too, possibly due to his huge sex drive. While written in fun and earthy language, the story didn't hold together that well. I think this will also be the last book I will read by this author. Sep 27, Jeffrey rated it liked it.

A lost soul and his wandering dick walks away from his beautiful family for an old flame who is a murderous slut. Mostly unbelievable and wanting. Not my favorite McGuane - but decent. Aug 26, A. Lucien Taylor, a State Department diplomat working in the Caribbean, leaves his wife and returns home to Montana to bail out a former lover, who is accused of murder.

Unfortunately for Lucien, she's guilty as sin. He ends up with her ranch, which he converts into a successful, lucrative resort. Lucien has everything, except the one thing he most wants: Something to be Desired restores the humour that was missing from Panama and Nobody's Angel, but this is not Lucien Taylor, a State Department diplomat working in the Caribbean, leaves his wife and returns home to Montana to bail out a former lover, who is accused of murder. Something to be Desired restores the humour that was missing from Panama and Nobody's Angel, but this is not the McGuane of 92 in the Shade.

The over-the-top violence of his early novels is gone, and the humour is less manic. The novel reflects some of my own experiences there. On that news, Vintage accepted the novel the following day. A paperback original, it was in print for eight years. This development changed my profile for a while, because I was known as a poet.

However, he was not supported by the other editors, and the manuscript was returned. The eye-catching detail is of a hospital bed floating against a dark blue sky, above a road that splits into three: The story, of course, is set in Chicago. On the bed, completely covered by a U. We refuse to kill anyone with a gun, or with anything else other than good intentions.

At first the cover surprised me. There is only one mention of a tornado in the book, and it does not occur in Rockaway. But pretty quickly I loved how the well the image captured a sense of menace and uncertainty lurking on a perfect beach day. Vintage Contemporaries was the beginning of the literary paperback. It was exciting to be part of something new and even more so to be alongside some of my idols like Raymond Carver, Denis Johnson, and Richard Ford.

It was pretty serendipitous, a lot of circumstances aligning. My book covers have been highly variable, in my opinion. You can tell when an artist has been inspired, and as a rule, more often than not, the simpler, the better. I loved those Vintage Contemporaries covers, particularly after really not loving the hardcover jackets. My entire experience with Vintage Contemporaries spoiled me. There is so much information in the image, such a strong, surreal portrait of a nerd. The WWII fighter plane crashing into the window is an image from the book, and the looming image of Dorothy in the window seems right out of the fevered imagination of my teenaged protagonist.

He and Lorraine added more to my book than any other designer since.

My contact, as I recall, was Judy Loeser, who was the art director. I knew Judy through a mutual friend—Jeff Rund—who was a collector of illustrations living in New York. He came to visit me when I lived in the South of England and bought several paintings from me. When I visited him in New York, he took me to meet Judy at Random House, and that started a relationship that led to some very interesting commissions for me. The covers tended to have a narrative content, and Judy was open to interesting ideas with very unintrusive typography—almost unheard of for me at that time producing mass-market paperback covers for the UK market.

They were all a pleasure to do, being given a great deal of artistic freedom to introduce a more subtle narrative into the image rather than the high impact stuff demanded by the UK publishing world at that time, and also a nice departure from the science fiction that I am most recognised for. The story was about the thoughts of a young girl as she watched her grandmother dying in bed.

The covers of the bed reminded her of the waves in the sea. The notion of death being like a sand sculpture slowly dissolving struck me as a rather poetic way of describing the event, which after all was what the story was about. My tenure was short because it was a time of great upheaval in Random House at large. After working for five bosses in eighteen months, I had had enough. Still, I was proud of the books I brought to this prestigious and beautifully packaged series: Working with Lorraine Louie was one of the highlights of a difficult assignment: I found many colleagues eager to cash in on the high profile Gary Fisketjon had established for the series.

She was warm, professional, and resourceful. I bought the reprint rights to this tale told by a whip-smart eleven-year-old orphan from Algonquin of Chapel Hill, whose cover featured a photo of an unmade bed with an old-fashioned metal headboard. The cover illustration by Chris Moore featured an equally bold blue background with a four poster bed surrealistically floating in water of a similar hue.

The blue sky above the bed glistened with gold stars; an arresting image of the way the world might look to a disoriented child. Gone were the boldly colored boxes on a grid with author, title, and illustration in a row from top to bottom. The boxes were now colored in subtle shades of sage, beige, and white: Of course the VC logo, a gold ball floating on a blue oblong dissected by two red lines, remained the same, though all of the typefaces had gone from a blocky, all-caps sans serif to a much more delicate one that swirled and curled.

The new cover was meant to appeal to a more sophisticated readership, one that would gravitate to a subtler approach. In truth, I liked them both. I thought my first novel was a story of a woman trying to learn to love her life. When my great editor at Vintage, Pat Mulcahy, called to talk to me about it, she said I was sort of missing the point. She said I was wrong. Pat repeated all of this to me, just in case I was wondering which of us has been right from the start.

Everybody thought the Vintage Contemporaries art team had, as usual, got it just right. I did love the cover, though. It took the book as a thriller, which was how at heart I meant it to be. More important, I loved the look of the imprint as a whole. It gave me a lot of confidence.

Vintage Contemporaries felt like a bunch of people who had something to say about the shape and drift of the modern world that might really be worth listening to, and the sharp, laid-back elegance of the collective house style—sassy without ever getting dated—really helped create that feeling. An accurate feeling, too—it was just very good publishing. I tip my hat to Gary Fisketjon and all who were involved, and thank them very much indeed for including me. To me, the hardback cover feels a little simplistic. The assignment was carried out, I would say, dutifully rather than from the heart.

The cover of the paperback feels like it was done by someone who not only read the book but experienced it, became temporarily part of it—a reader-artist who felt a kind of ownership of the book. If the hardback cover was a summary, the paperback cover with one barely noticeable exception: The Buick which here is more accurately the age of the one in the story becomes a framing device pictorially, which is exactly what it is in the novel as well.

• .
• See a Problem?.
• Xenophon (Oxford Readings in Classical Studies).
• Les Damnés de Dana: La Dame Sombre: 1 (Griffe Sombre) (French Edition);

The house, which is the heart of the story, is seen reflected in its window, and the details of the house make it clear that the artist paid close attention to the physical world of the book. To create an excellent book cover, one must have made an imaginative commitment as a reader first. The practice of creating images for book covers speaks to something very basic in people: Every nation has its flag, every university its seal, every product its logo. Religions each have their visual symbol. Our expectations of the thing itself, even our understanding of its essence, somehow attach to an image, and this is true of a book cover, for better or worse.

So when editor Robin Desser of Vintage made a preempt offer for the paperback rights, I was very pleasantly surprised. Vintage Contemporaries had the reputation of being culturally of-the-moment, so I thought that being a Vintage author might give me street cred.

I shared a cab with him and his wife and remember thinking that he was just a regular guy like me, writing as honestly and unpretentiously as he could about modern life. I remember marveling at the healthy sense of entitlement and self-worth. At the time, I was just amazed and grateful that a publisher was actually paying my hotel bill. I had no input into the design, so I was a little surprised when I first saw it. This was I think one of the first Vintage Contemporaries I had seen with a front illustration that bled to all four edges of the book.

But it was still recognizable as a VC book, so I was satisfied. My feelings about the illustration itself were mostly positive. I loved the color palette, and I thought the designer had really captured the rueful, searching, slightly absurdist tone of the stories. This happy prospect was diminished, however, when Yates saw the cover art, which so enraged him that he was tempted to stop the presses with legal action.

Does it mean to suggest identical twins who have only coat-hanger hooks where their heads ought to be? I am entirely baffled and believe readers will be, too. A set of three of the stories won a national award, the award came with ready made blurbs from two literary star judges, the preliminary judge ended up being my editor, and in that brief moment her publishing house had some success publishing short stories.

• Account Options;
• Something to Be Desired by Thomas McGuane | www.newyorkethnicfood.com: Books.
• At the Mercy of the State;

The Vintage Contemporaries paperback contract seemed to come along just as easily. Vintage Contemporaries was a knockout series in the eighties and early nineties. Membership indicated one was vintage and new all at once. Except for writing the book, which informed the illustrator, I had nothing to do with the cover.

She has a distinct hairstyle, but the men and the other woman in the crowd resemble clothed mannequins with painted heads, differentiated only by color. The colors, the style, now that years have passed, transcend what might otherwise have become dated. I intended to write to Lorraine about the cover design, and now wish that I had. Some writers accept covers, some reject covers, and some have covers thrust upon them. My experience with the covers of my novels has been largely in the latter category. At some point between the second pass of the manuscript and the arrival of the galley, I am presented with a cover.

I was hopeful when I learned that the paperbacks for these two books would come from Vintage, as I had admired the look of their books for many years. Also, at that time Vintage just felt like the place everybody wanted to be. I think it still is, actually. Edward Hopper and Henri Rousseau. The woman appears to be gazing at the very nice quote from Margaret Atwood in dark green print towards the bottom of the window. But the composition, including the clock that reads quarter-to-five A. The animals in this collection of stories are all urban creatures, some of them quite threatening—for example, rats—and all of them, sad to say, doomed.

The human characters muddle on with their lives, often nostalgic for the Garden of Eden, which is really right there, all around them, if only they could wake from the dream that is self-consciousness and see it. I never met Lorraine Louie. I am saddened to learn that she is no longer among us and I appreciate this opportunity to say now, in a public way: This really brings back some very fond memories; great stories to illustrate, and great designers, art directors and editors to work with.

Thanks to Sean for pulling it all together to celebrate this wonderful imprint. Some are great young and old but far too many assume you the illustrator are as visually clueless as they are. This is the most comprehensive article to date about Vintage Contemporaries, and an important and interesting time in publishing. Thanks Sean for your clear focus. You are commenting using your WordPress. You are commenting using your Twitter account. You are commenting using your Facebook account. Notify me of new comments via email.

What are some of your favorite Vintage Contemporaries covers? What was Lorraine Louie like to work with? A complete pleasure—incredibly talented, adventurous, and personable.

Something to Be Desired by Thomas McGuane

According to my database, which is incomplete, I did seven Vintage Contemporaries covers. I salute Lorraine Louie and regret her passing. She was a total pro. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Enter your comment here Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: