Short Stories: Ritual is the recognisable part of lives; it confers structure and tends to provide us with a sense of purpose. "We always went back to my mother's hometown when someone was about to die," recalls the narrator of Miracle Boy, one of several fine stories in Thomas McGuane's new collection, which is reviewed by Eileen Battersby
"We missed Uncle Kevin because the doctors misdiagnosed his ruptured appendix, owing to referred pain in his shoulder. Septicaemia killed him before they sorted it out with a victorious air we never forgave. The liverless baby was well before our time . . . but my grandfather's departure arrived ideally for scheduling purposes in the late stages of diabetes."
Sly humour as black as this surfaces throughout the stories. Montana-based McGuane has written nine novels and several memorable stories as well as clued-in non-fiction. In between books he runs to ground at his ranch, so his literary reappearances, such as this one, are welcome events. He can always be relied upon to sneak up and wrong-foot the reader who, just when it seems time to laugh out loud, begins to cry instead. One of the unsung heroes of the US short story, a US Frank O'Connor crossed with shades of Russell Banks, McGuane is possessed of poised humour and often unusually formal prose when not dictated to by a vernacularly-voiced cowboy narrator; he is also as elegant as he is subversive. Miracle Boy is a brilliant example of what he can do. The narrator is remembering his brief career as a miracle child, who no doubt due to his "little-old-man style" seemed blessed with rare powers.
Following the death of his grandfather, his hyperactive matriarchal grandmother takes to her bed. "Her absence brought the household to a standstill. My mother and aunts seemed entirely helpless without her ordering them around. She did not even seem to acknowledge them when they visited her room, and a meeting was called where it was decided to send me in . . . As it happened I was the only child available for idealising, standing around with my mouth open."
She enters the room and observes his bereft grandmother and says nothing. "After a while, several formulaic remarks on the death of my grandfather passed through my mind . . . but those thoughts vanished." There is a pass. The silence is important. Then the narrator's younger self speaks. "I was wondering if Grandpa left me any jewels?"
A second important silence follows. "Suddenly she began to laugh, from some deep place, and grandmother rises and sets about cooking supper." And his reputation as a healer or miracle boy is born - until "Now my grandmother was dying, the death of a monarch." Expectation had, by then, become a burden for him, "at each crisis I worried that I would be asked to perform again." McGuane plays this gag just enough without labouring it and it acts as a prelude of sorts for the real story, that of grandmother's tough history "the Saga of the Displaced Gael", and the subsequent account of her funeral. It is perfectly pitched. McGuane, here and elsewhere, demonstrates the way he can drive comedy to surreal borders, yet unlike Annie Proulx, another writer of stories you always tend to read at least three times, he never falters into her weakness for raucous caricature. That said, when Proulx is at her best, there is no one as good, but most of the time she operates at a more noticeably laboured gear than McGuane. She slaps language around, bullying it like a school marm; he teases it and lures it into doing his bidding.
Through its sustained narrative voice and sheer depth of understated feeling, the finest work in this strong collection is Cowboy, a story strongly reminiscent of Proulx. "The old feller made me go into the big house in my stocking feet," recalls the narrator. "The old lady's in a big chair next to the window. In fact, the whole room's full of big chairs, but she's only in one of them, though as big as she is she could of filled up several." He then reports a brief exchange between the couple in which the old man announces to the woman that he discovered the narrator in their ranch yard. "What's he supposed to be?" asks the old lady. The answer is short. "Supposed to be a cowboy." She is quick to amend this: "You're an outta [ sic] work cowboy." It turns out that the old couple are brother and sister and the narrator, having been tentatively hired, begins long years of service with them, which develops into a close bond with the old man.
It is unnervingly superb - nuanced, word perfect and unblemished by even a crumb of sentimentality, McGuane shapes an extraordinarily sympathetic account of one man's life as given a second chance and a home through a labouring job. It is also a dramatic account of a dying way of life. The genius of the tale lies in the cowboy's stoic, unquestioning acceptance. "The old lady died sittin [ sic] down, went in there and there she was, sittin [ sic] down, and she was dead."
After her death, the men look after each other, cooking in turn, changing over "when the other feller got sick of his recipes". Finally, the old man dies and the narrator is forced to leave the ranch. There is no bitterness, just the same matter of fact tone that has prevailed throughout the entire story. "There's always an opening for a cowboy, even a [ sic] old sumbitch [ sic] like me, if he can halfway make a hand."
Aliens is another, very different example of McGuane's art. Having worked long years in a Boston law firm, Homer Newland, now a widower of 75, returns home to Montana only to discover it terrifyingly changed, "his dismay was all consuming" and, McGuane continues, it "seemed like a place he had once read about in a dentist's office, and his daughter who lived there felt the pressure of his impending return."
It is a very funny story with flashes of magnificent pathos, particularly when Homer decides to get in touch with a former lover from the days when they were both married to other people. He remembers her beauty. "Homer greeted a nice-looking old lady as she got off the plane. Her smile was the first thing that caught his eye - it was drawn slightly off centre, causing her to remark lightly, "I've had a stroke. Is it still okay?"
There are also memories of his dead wife CeeCee, who had "acquired a reputation for heightened spirituality among acquaintances who didn't realise she was drunk." An inspired comic set piece is fashioned out of a yard sale organised by Homer's disgruntled, about to divorce, daughter who shows no mercy.
These 10 diverse stories read as moving pictures, excursions into lives lived. Errol, the central character in The Refugee is trying to make amends, his adventures at sea are funny, but more importantly than that, beautifully written - particularly in the passages featuring light and water. No matter the mood or the tone, McGuane displays an almost courtly regard for language. Enjoy a kaleidoscopic performer who makes the difficult appear as natural as breathing, or simply telling a good story very well.
Eileen Battersby is Literary Correspondent of The Irish Times
Gallatin Canyon. By Thomas McGuane, Harvill Secker, 220pp. £12.99