Montana plays essential role in author's 10th novel

It's been 10 years between novels for Thomas McGuane, one of the brightest lights in American literature in the last 35 years.

"This book especially was written with great deliberation and malice aforethought," says McGuane, laughing about his latest effort, "The Cadence of Grass" (Knopf, $24). "And, it was hard to write. I think that everything was keeping me from writing it, including my word processor."

It's not that McGuane hasn't been working. Three years ago, the Montana-based writer released "The Longest Silence," a collection of essays on his favorite sport, fishing. But "The Cadence of Grass," his first fictional effort since 1992's "Nothing But Blue Skies," was a trying experience, written in longhand (about 500 pages) before undergoing seven revisions.

"I had this book in my head, and it was a difficult birth," says McGuane, 62, who lives in Sweet Grass County, Montana. "I don't know why, but it was very hard to get in this current condition. ... I think probably the deliberation, and, I hope, the purposefulness of the writing process show a little bit."

The novel is typical McGuane: an elaborate, almost Byzantine storyline that is enriched by the author's colorful, intricate use of language. It's a novel that demands patience, yet yields immense dividends to attentive readers.

McGuane is one the few American writers — Jim Harrison and Cormac McCarthy also come to mind — who use place as an essential element, yet don't let details overwhelm their thematic expositions. Since 1982's "Nobody's Angel," Montana's vastness, combined with a certain emptiness — it's the fourth largest state in the United States, with only 0.3 percent of the country's population, according to the 2000 census — has served as the perfect canvas for McGuane's tales.

"I've lived here for 34 years now," he says. "And unless I were to write about my childhood, which I've never done and would sort of like to do, this is really the only place I have that kind of close feeling for what you need when you are writing fiction, so you can reach for things readily."

"The Cadence of Grass" centers upon the Whitelaw family, whose patriarch, Sunny Jim Whitelaw, has just died. Because of a clause in the old man's will, Paul Crusoe, estranged husband of Whitelaw's daughter Evelyn, is placed in control of the family's fortune, a bottling plant. Only if Crusoe and Evelyn reconcile can the family fortunes be restored to their rightful heirs.

The trouble is, Crusoe is cast as a degree removed from pure evil, a handsome ne'er-do-well who has no intention of giving up his new-found status. Even more confounding for Evelyn and her sister Natalie are Crusoe's considerable charms.

"Some people wonder why I've taken such a near-satanic figure and made him amusing," McGuane says. "It's a combination of a couple things. One, as Irish Catholics, we attribute a lot of traits to the devil. I didn't see him as a Lutheran devil, slow-moving and easy to target. And secondly, I don't think the forces of evil are ever very menacing unless they're charming or seductive. I think of him as sort of Goethe's Faust, where he's sinking into a cauldron of boiling oil at the end, but not so overcome by his circumstances that he just stops cursing all his friends and enemies."

Another character, however, emerges as the novel's guiding light. Bill Champion is an old family friend of the Whitelaws, a rancher who raises cattle with Evelyn. It seems he's a leftover from another age and time:

She'd watched him closely since her childhood. Now Bill Champion was old, but straight and lean and, when the narrow slits of his eyelids so revealed, the owner of bluest ice blue eyes. He always had his hands all over his animals, and when something caught him by surprise like this foot rot, he seemed to doubt his own care. Likewise, he watched Evelyn continuously. Today he told her to shorten her reins, sit straight in her saddle, get her heels down in the stirrups and look to where she wanted to go before directing her horse there. "Sometimes they can tell just from your eyes."

Sadly, McGuane says, the Bill Champions of Montana are slowly fading away, as are some of the state's wide open spaces. He says that industrial interests would strip mine the entire state, if given the opportunity. Yet there's also no place else he would rather be.

"I am emotionally so attached to this place, and exasperated by it," he says. "There are things that drive you crazy here. Montana's a very diverse place, compared to its neighboring states. It's always had a strong cultural life and there are a lot of great writers who live here. But for a place with a low population and a lot of open country, it's still socially a fairly complicated place. And I never tire of thinking about it or reading five Montana newspapers a day."

At novel's end, McGuane takes a surprising turn from the narrative. All of a sudden, Bill Champion's role comes into focus, and McGuane's intent — an elegy to what is slowly slipping away — becomes clear. Evelyn Whitelaw remains a bridge between Montana's past and present, the wide open spaces and the new landscape with a Starbucks on every corner.

"There are people around like Evelyn who love this world that they had, but they don't do it with affectation," McGuane says. "They don't go around posing as ranch people. They understand they live in the 21st century, but that doesn't mean they've abandoned the things they've always cared about. For those people, there's always a slight air of fatalism: They know they can't turn the clock back, they know time marches on. I have a lot of affection for those people who are so comfortable with what they do, they don't have to pretend about it."

The same can be said of McGuane and his body of work.

"The Sporting Club," 1969 — McGuane's first novel featured what would become two recurring themes: the outdoors (specifically his love of fishing), and a sense of the absurd nature of rivalries between men.

"The Bushwhacked Piano," 1971 — The story is typical McGuane: a bizarre scheme to sell two bat-infested towers, with a character, Nicholas Payne, who is the first in a long line of charming rogues that come to inhabit the author's work.

"Ninety-Two in the Shade," 1973 — The first of two novels McGuane sets in Key West. Thomas Skelton attempts to escape from his drug-addled lifestyle by becoming a fishing guide in the Keys, but finds more trouble than peace of mind.

"Panama," 1978 — A washed-up rock star returns home to Key West to reinvent himself. Generally considered McGuane's most autobiographical novel.

"Nobody's Angel," 1982 — The first of McGuane's novels with Montana as the main setting, "Nobody's Angel" marks a turn in his writing to larger landscapes and themes. Still, it's a comic novel with great characters, especially Patrick Fitzpatrick, a cowboy with a sister who is a pyromaniac and a grandfather who dreams of becoming an actor.

"Something to be Desired," 1984 — A rancher, Lucien Taylor, leaves his wife and son for an old girlfriend, who then is arrested for murder. Things spiral quickly downward from there.

"To Skin a Cat," 1987 — McGuane's first and only collection of short stories.

"Keep the Change," 1989 — A rancher whose stock is falling, Joe Starling is also a painter who doesn't paint, and is miserably inept at maintaining relationships. Made into a movie for the TNT network starring William Petersen and Lolita Davidovich.

"Nothing But Blue Skies," 1992 — Frank Copenhaver is another character on the rebound, an ex-hippie turned cattle rancher who is abandoned by his wife and daughter. Again, McGuane imbues his protagonist, however flawed, with rare nobility in the face of desperate times.