McGuane's fictions, with their joyous iconoclasm and willingness to attack any sacred cow whatsoever, have the potential to offend everyone from the redneck to the artiste, and ought to provoke lively and spirited discussion.

His early works' emphasis on political satire and freewheeling antisocial destructiveness may not sit well in a deeply post-1960s age, and his treatment of women has come under increasing fire in an age of increased sensitivity to feminist demands. Issues of particular interest are McGuane's abiding vision of the father-son relationship hanging over every man, his protagonists' struggles to establish some reasonable relation to the women in their lives, and his critique of the American ethic of consumerism. Further issues such as the view of American civilization as seen from its margins, the personal quest for meaning in a crass and blurry moral landscape, and the failure of comforting myths and...