Forget Big Sky And Cowboys: Thomas McGuane’s ‘Crow Fair’ Is Set In An Unidealized Montana

"I think there’s only one interesting story … and that’s struggle," says writer Thomas McGuane. Loners, outcasts and malcontents fill the pages of McGuane’s latest book — a collection of short stories titled Crow Fair. There’s a divorced dad who takes his young son out for an ill-fated day of ice fishing; A restless cattle breeder who takes a gamble on a more lucrative and dangerous line of works; A guy who abandons his blind grandmother by the side of a river to go get drunk, and chase after a corpse he’s spotted floating by.

These "so-called unsavory" characters are "voiceless," he tells NPR’s Melissa Block. "I try to find out what their view of the world would be by imagination — to sort of see how they see things. … It wouldn’t interest me very much to write a lot about contented people, successful people. That’s I think for some other job, maybe sociology, not mine."

Full Story: http://www.npr.org/2015/03/09/391891766/forget-big-sky-and-cowboys-crow-fair-is-set-in-an-unidealized-montana