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In the 1970s McGuane was in Key West with Jim Harrison and Richard Brautigan, writing novels that reviewers called the work of the next Hemingway, directing a film of his own Ninety-Two in the Shade with Peter Fonda, and having three more books filmed with Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando in them. Then his father, his mother and his sister died within thirty months, he moved to a ranch in Montana, and the writing changed — the early books are wild, funny and shaggy, and everything since is quieter, stranger and considerably harder to shake. He has published ten novels, four collections of stories and some of the best writing anyone has done about fishing and horses, and the general verdict now is that the short stories are the real achievement: Cloudbursts (2018) gathers forty-five of them, five hundred and seventy-six pages, and was a book of the year at the Wall Street Journal. His subject is people on the edge of things whose pasts keep spoiling their chances of company, and he has never written a story that is not funny. He took the Los Angeles Times lifetime achievement award in 2016. The ten below are chosen on landscape, comedy and failure.
By Lisanne Swart · 10 authors · American fiction · Ten novels, 45 stories · Montana · Updated September 2026
Quick answer
The closest match is Jim Harrison, his friend from the Key West years and the other great American writer of appetite and the outdoors. Richard Ford and Annie Proulx write the same failures and the same weather, Barry Hannah and Richard Brautigan the early wildness. Ernest Hemingway is the comparison reviewers saddled him with. Two writers own the Montana ground beside him, and one of them is the argument against the whole shelf.
Where to start if you loved Thomas McGuane
If you want the closest match, read Jim Harrison.
Legends of the Fall. His friend, and the other half of the same appetite.
If you loved Cloudbursts, read Richard Ford.
Rock Springs. Ten stories on McGuane's own ground, men out of options.
If you want the fishing, read Norman Maclean.
A River Runs Through It. A hundred pages, two brothers, one river.
If you want Montana from underneath, read Ivan Doig.
This House of Sky. Wages, weather and a county school, by someone born there.
If you want the argument against him, read Maile Meloy.
Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It. Same state, both halves written.
If you want more novels of this kind
My shelf of the best fiction has the rest.
10 authors like Thomas McGuane
Frequently asked questions about authors like Thomas McGuane
Who should I read if I love Thomas McGuane?
Jim Harrison is the closest — his friend from the Key West years and the other great American writer of appetite and landscape. Richard Ford writes the same failures in the same flat exact prose and Rock Springs is set on McGuane's ground. Annie Proulx keeps the economics visible, Barry Hannah and Richard Brautigan match the early wildness, and Ernest Hemingway is the comparison reviewers gave him in the 1970s. Norman Maclean wrote the other great Montana fishing book, Ivan Doig writes the state from underneath, Cormac McCarthy writes it without the jokes, and Maile Meloy is the argument against.
Which Thomas McGuane book should I start with?
Cloudbursts (2018), because the stories are the real achievement and this is all of them: forty-five pieces, five hundred and seventy-six pages, including his three earlier collections and eight new ones. Start with “Gallatin Canyon”, “The Refugee” or “Cowboy”. If you want a novel, Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973) is the famous early one and Nothing but Blue Skies (1992) the funniest. The Longest Silence (1999) is the fishing book and does not require you to fish.
Did his writing change over time?
Completely, and he says so. The early novels — The Sporting Club, The Bushwhacked Piano, Ninety-Two in the Shade — are wild, digressive and very funny, written in Key West in his late twenties and early thirties. After the deaths of his father, mother and sister inside thirty months and a move to a Montana ranch, the work becomes quieter, more compressed and much sadder, and the short story becomes his main form. Most readers prefer the later work; a devoted minority prefers the early novels and will argue about it.
Was he really called the next Hemingway?
Repeatedly, in the 1970s, and it did him no favours. The surface case is obvious — Michigan boyhood, Key West, fishing, hunting, men in landscapes — and there was a period when his celebrity, including the films and the Hollywood connections, was intruding on how the books were read. The deeper difference is comedy: Hemingway's men are tested by the natural world and McGuane's are usually made ridiculous by it, which is a completely different proposition.
Is The Longest Silence worth reading if I do not fish?
Yes, and that is the usual verdict. It is thirty-three essays, it has been called the best fly fishing book ever written by people who would know, and its real subject is attention, failure and how to spend time badly on purpose — his own formulation is that angling is extremely time consuming and that this is sort of the whole point. The chapter on Izaak Walton argues that The Compleat Angler has survived four centuries because it is not about how to fish but about how to be.
What is the criticism of Thomas McGuane?
That it is a gallery of flawed masculine types. His characters are mainly men who fail to connect with or comprehend other people, mainly women, and the women can feel like the occasion for that failure rather than people in their own right. The early novels also carry a good deal of 1970s swagger. The defence is that he knows exactly how ridiculous his men are and never lets them off, and that the later stories are considerably harder on them. Maile Meloy, writing the same state, is the fastest way to test it.
What order should I read his work in?
Stories first: Cloudbursts, or Gallatin Canyon (2006) if you want a single collection. Then Nothing but Blue Skies (1992) and Ninety-Two in the Shade (1973), which will show you both halves of the career. Then The Longest Silence. The Bushwhacked Piano (1971) is the funniest of the early books and the one that most divides readers. His horse writing, in Some Horses, is for when you are already committed.
What has he written recently?
Nothing new since Cloudbursts in 2018, which was explicitly assembled as a career-capping volume — three collections plus eight new stories in one book. He was a National Magazine Award finalist in 2013 for the story “River Camp”, a Frank O'Connor Award finalist in 2015, and took the Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement at the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes in 2016. He is in his late eighties and still on the ranch in Montana.
Footnotes
- Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories — Penguin Random House
- Fine short stories from McGuane — Los Angeles Times review of Cloudbursts
- The Longest Silence — Wikipedia, with the critical reception
- Thomas McGuane on Izaak Walton, from The Longest Silence — University of Pittsburgh Library guide
- Thomas McGuane — Wikipedia, with awards and biography
List last reviewed 23 September 2026.
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“Angling is extremely time consuming. That's sort of the whole point.”
— Thomas McGuane, The Longest Silence, 1999.
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