Author Guide · American Fiction
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In 1974 Thomas McGuane’s third novel, Ninety-Two in the Shade, a story about two rival fishing guides in Key West, was a finalist for the National Book Award; a year later he directed the film of it himself. Born in Wyandotte, Michigan, in 1939, he trained in drama at Yale, held a Stegner Fellowship at Stanford, and has lived in Montana since 1968. He also wrote screenplays for Rancho Deluxe and The Missouri Breaks, and is in the halls of fame of both fly fishing and cutting horses. The early novels are set in Key West and Michigan; from 1981 the books move to Montana, and later the short story takes over. His most recent collection, A Wooded Shore, appeared in 2025. This guide covers his 14 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 14 key books · 1969–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Thomas McGuane has published ten novels, from The Sporting Club (1969) to Driving on the Rim (2010), five story collections and several books of essays. His best-known book is Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973), a National Book Award finalist; start there. For the later work, read Crow Fair (2015), and for fishing, The Longest Silence (1999).
Where to Start with Thomas McGuane
If you want his best-known novel
→ Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973) — the 1973 Key West book that made his name.
If you want the later short stories
→ Crow Fair (2015) — Montana stories from 2015.
If you want the fishing writing
→ The Longest Silence (1999) — his essays on a life on the water.
If you want the Montana novels
→ Nothing but Blue Skies (1992) — a businessman coming apart after his wife leaves.
14 Thomas McGuane Books, in Order
The Sporting Club
Two old friends, the reckless prankster Vernor Stanton and the more cautious James Quinn, meet again at an exclusive hunting and fishing club in northern Michigan, where Stanton sets out to tear the place and its members apart. A film version, written by Lorenzo Semple Jr., came out in 1971.
The Bushwhacked Piano
Nicholas Payne follows Ann, a young woman whose parents cannot stand him, from Michigan to Montana and signs up with C. J. Clovis, a con man selling bat towers as a cure for mosquitoes. It won the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy.
Ninety-Two in the Shade
Thomas Skelton comes home to Key West to work as a fishing guide, which puts him up against Nichol Dance, an established guide who warns him that if he takes out a paying client, Dance will kill him. It was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1974. McGuane wrote and directed the 1975 film, with Peter Fonda and Margot Kidder.
Panama
Chet Pomeroy, a burnt-out celebrity, comes back to Key West to win back his estranged wife Catherine, who has had enough of his excesses. Written in the first person, it is the most personal of the early books, and it drew some of the harshest reviews of his career.
Nobody’s Angel
Patrick Fitzpatrick, a former soldier, fourth-generation cowboy and heavy drinker, comes home to the family ranch in Montana, where his grandfather wants to run off to the movies and his sister wants to burn the house down. His publisher calls it his first novel set in the American West.
Something to Be Desired
Lucien Taylor leaves his wife and son for an old love, Emily, who has shot her husband, and ends up with her Montana ranch, where he turns the hot springs into a resort. It is a novel about a man trying, too late, to get back the family he walked out on.
To Skin a Cat
His first book of stories, published by Dutton, set mostly among the ranchers, fishermen and drifters of Montana and the Gulf Coast. Many of these stories were later reprinted in Cloudbursts (2018).
Keep the Change
Joe Starling, a painter who has stopped painting, leaves Key West and drives back to Montana to take on the family ranch his father left, along with an aunt and uncle who want it, and the woman he used to love.
Nothing but Blue Skies
Frank Copenhaver, a businessman in the Montana town of Deadrock, falls apart after his wife Gracie leaves him: the deals go wrong, the affairs go wrong, and he tries, not very well, to keep a relationship with his daughter.
The Longest Silence
Essays on fly fishing written over several decades, from the rivers of Montana to the saltwater flats of the Florida Keys and beyond, published by Knopf. It is his best-known non-fiction book; in 2017 he was inducted into the Catskill Fly Fishing Center’s Hall of Fame.
The Cadence of Grass
When the Montana patriarch Sunny Jim Whitelaw dies, his will ties the family bottling business to a condition: his daughter Evelyn must stay married to Paul Crusoe, the husband she wants to leave.
Driving on the Rim
Berl Pickett, a doctor in a small Montana town, tells the story of his life after he is accused in the death of a patient. It is his tenth and most recent novel.
Crow Fair
His third story collection, set in Montana, about ranchers, families and men whose plans are going wrong. Published by Knopf, it had starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, Booklist and Library Journal.
A Wooded Shore
New stories, published by Knopf in October 2025, when he was 85, including “Balloons”, “Thataway” and the title story. Publishers Weekly called it a “stellar collection” of “misguided and doomed characters”.
In What Order to Read Thomas McGuane
None of the novels is part of a series, so you can start anywhere. Publication order does show the shape of the career: three fast comic novels set in Michigan, Montana and Key West, then Panama, then from Nobody’s Angel (1981) a run of Montana novels about ranches, families and inheritance.
After Driving on the Rim (2010) he has published only stories. Cloudbursts (2018) collects most of the stories from the three earlier collections with new ones, so read it instead of those books rather than as well as them.
A reading path
1. Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973)
2. Nothing but Blue Skies (1992)
3. The Longest Silence (1999)
4. Crow Fair (2015)
5. Panama (1978)
Everything Else Thomas McGuane Published
Beyond the 14 key books: 9 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Story collections
2
2 books · 2006–2018
- 2006Gallatin Canyonstories, his second collection
- 2018Cloudbursts: Collected and New Storiesthe earlier collections plus new stories in one volume
Non-fiction
4
4 books · 1980–2000
- 1980An Outside Chance: Essays on Sporthis first essays, expanded and reissued in 1990
- 1996Live Wateron fishing, with paintings by John Swan
- 1999Some Horsesessays on horses and horsemanship
- 2000Upstreamphotographs of fly fishing, with a text by McGuane
Screenplays (films)
3
3 books · 1975–1980
- 1975Rancho Deluxeoriginal screenplay
- 1976The Missouri Breakswith Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson
- 1980Tom Hornco-written with Bud Shrake
The years · 1939–2025
Quick facts about Thomas McGuane
- Known for
- Comic novels of reckless men in Key West and Montana, above all Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973), and later short stories and fishing essays written from his life in Montana.
- 1939
- Born in Wyandotte, Michigan
- 1968
- Moves to Montana
- 2010
- American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 2025
- A Wooded Shore
- Born
- 11 December 1939, Wyandotte, Michigan
- Education
- Michigan State University (BA 1962); Yale (MFA 1965); Stegner Fellow, Stanford, 1966–67
- Lives
- In Montana since 1968
- Married
- Laurie Buffett, in 1977; earlier to Portia Rebecca Crockett and the actress Margot Kidder
- Honours
- National Book Award finalist (1974); American Academy of Arts and Letters (2010)
- Also
- Screenwriter of Rancho Deluxe and The Missouri Breaks; fly fishing and cutting horse halls of fame
The red mark is 1973: Ninety-Two in the Shade, the Key West novel that made his name.
How Thomas McGuane Writes
The early novels are fast, crowded comedies. The Bushwhacked Piano and Ninety-Two in the Shade move by digression and escalation, the jokes sit in the sentences rather than the plot, and under the comedy there is usually something close to tragedy. The setting is never just scenery: his people guide, fish, ranch and run businesses, and the place is what they are trying to make a living from.
From Nobody’s Angel on, the books move to Montana and the subjects narrow to families, marriages, land and inheritance. His men are capable adults who wreck their own lives, and the later stories, from Crow Fair on, compress the same material into a few pages with quieter endings. Asked about loneliness in 2015, he said: “I think it’s the underlying condition of being human.”
Fishing, boats, Key West and a Michigan boyhood make the Hemingway comparison automatic. McGuane’s own answer: “I admire him, of course, and share a lot of similar interests, but I really don’t write like him.” For writers who work the same ground, see Authors like Thomas McGuane.
Watch
Thomas McGuane: America at Large
McGuane speaks at the John Adams Institute, the American cultural centre in Amsterdam, about his writing and the America in his books.
Frequently asked questions about Thomas McGuane’s books
How many books has Thomas McGuane written?
Ten novels, from The Sporting Club (1969) to Driving on the Rim (2010), and five story collections, the latest A Wooded Shore (2025), plus books of essays on fishing, sport and horses. This page lists 14 key books and nine more titles, including three screenplays, under “Everything else”.
What are Thomas McGuane’s books in order?
The key books: The Sporting Club (1969), The Bushwhacked Piano (1971), Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973), Panama (1978), Nobody’s Angel (1981), Something to Be Desired (1984), To Skin a Cat (1986), Keep the Change (1989), Nothing but Blue Skies (1992), The Longest Silence (1999), The Cadence of Grass (2002), Driving on the Rim (2010), Crow Fair (2015) and A Wooded Shore (2025).
Where should I start with Thomas McGuane?
Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973): short, funny and his best-known book. If you prefer short stories, start with Crow Fair (2015); if you fish, with The Longest Silence (1999).
What is Thomas McGuane’s most famous book?
Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973), a National Book Award finalist in 1974, which he adapted and directed as a film in 1975. Among anglers, The Longest Silence (1999) is at least as well known.
What is Ninety-Two in the Shade about?
Thomas Skelton returns to Key West to become a fishing guide. Nichol Dance, an established guide, tells him that if he ever takes out a paying client, Dance will kill him. Skelton takes out a client.
Is Thomas McGuane still alive and writing?
Yes. He was born on 11 December 1939 and published a new story collection, A Wooded Shore, with Knopf in October 2025. His most recent novel is Driving on the Rim (2010).
What films did Thomas McGuane write?
He wrote Rancho Deluxe (1975) and The Missouri Breaks (1976), with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, co-wrote Tom Horn (1980) with Bud Shrake and Cold Feet (1989) with Jim Harrison, and wrote and directed 92 in the Shade (1975) from his own novel.
Who is Thomas McGuane married to?
Laurie Buffett, the sister of the singer Jimmy Buffett, whom he married in 1977. Before that he was married to Portia Rebecca Crockett, from 1962 to 1975, and briefly to the actress Margot Kidder, who acted in his film 92 in the Shade.
Was Thomas McGuane friends with Jim Harrison?
Yes. The two novelists were friends from their student years at Michigan State until Harrison’s death in 2016, and they co-wrote the screenplay for Cold Feet (1989).
Is Thomas McGuane like Hemingway?
The subjects overlap — fishing, Key West, Michigan, the West — but McGuane has said: “I admire him, of course, and share a lot of similar interests, but I really don’t write like him.” His prose is more comic and digressive, and his men are less tested than self-sabotaging.
Footnotes
- McGuane, Thomas 1939– — Encyclopedia.com (Contemporary Authors)
- Thomas McGuane — Library of Michigan, Michigan Authors
- Tom McGuane — Catskill Fly Fishing Center Hall of Fame, 2017
- Thomas McGuane on Not Living the Writer’s Life — Literary Hub, 2018
- The Serious Stuff: Thomas McGuane — Publishers Weekly, 2015
- Panama by Thomas McGuane — Kirkus Reviews
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“I don’t know how not to do it.”
— Thomas McGuane on why he writes, interview in Publishers Weekly (2015)
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