Nobody's Angel

By Thomas McGuane

A novel about a former soldier in Big Sky Country whose life is spiraling out of control, from the acclaimed author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts, who is "among the most arresting and fascinating [writers] of his generation" (San Francisco Chronicle).

In McGuane's first novel set in his famed American West, Patrick Fitzpatrick is a former soldier, a fourth-generation cowboy, and a whiskey addict. His grandfather wants to run away to act in movies, his sister wants to burn the house down, and his new stallion is bent on killing him: all of them urgently require attention. But increasingly Patrick himself is spiraling out of control, into that region of romantic misadventure and vanishing possibilities that is Thomas McGuane's Montana. Nowhere has McGuane mapped that territory more precisely—or with such tenderhearted lunacy—than in Nobody's Angel, a novel that places him in a genre of his own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780307822017

Thomas McGuane

Thomas McGuane is the author of several highly acclaimed novels, including The Sporting Club and The Bushwhacked Piano. He has also written several works of nonfiction that stem from his passion for sport and the outdoors, including An Outside Chance,The Longest Silence, and Some Horses. He lives in Montana.

Reviews for Nobody's Angel

[hagelstein_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Patrick Fitzpatrick is a former army Captain, a tank commander, recently returned to the family farm. He gets tossed in jail a bit for fighting when he’s not breaking horses. It’s not certain which he’s talking about when he thinks “By your late thirties the ground has begun to grow hard. It grows harder and harder until the day that it admits you.” Perhaps life itself.Patrick’s pessimism is confirmed by his sister’s suicide on the day their estranged mother visits with her new family. He falls into a tragic relationship with the wife of a blustery Oklahoma oil tycoon who is actually financed by her. It ends badly.I’ve never sensed nihilism in McGuane’s writing but it’s here, along with a touch of pessimism. It’s still a great novel.

[zmagic69 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

McGuane's books remind me of Hemingway, if Hemingway wrote primarily about Cowboys, men have trouble growing old,much less growing up, and Montana. For me at least his books remain readable in the 21st century unlike much of Hemingway.