Ep. 185: Tom McGuane On The Beauty of Not Knowing

Published: 2019-09-09 10:00:00

Description Show ▼

Steven Rinella talks with the author Tom McGuane, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.

Subjects discussed: What to write on your gravestone; Tom's lifelong bond with Jimmy Buffett and Jim Harrison; is Jack Nicholson kind of a prick?; living with Marlon Brando; The Missouri Breaks; shooting into coveys; the profile of a "Fudd"; the relationship between biodiversity and active ranch land; before Key West became Key West; America as a people; becoming nobody on a windy porch; and more.

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Referenced Books

Letters from Ecuador

by None

McGuane discusses this National Book Award winning book critically, mentioning it was written by an avant-garde woman living in New York City who was proud she'd never been to Ecuador despite writing about it.

Referenced at 00:00:08

Trout Fishing in America

by Richard Brautigan

McGuane mentions that his friend Richard Brautigan's daughter sent him a new edition with Billy Collins' introduction. Later discussed as a book that people read while fishing even though 'it doesn't really have anything to do with trout fishing.'

Referenced at 00:00:08

Blood Knots

by Luke Jennings

McGuane describes this as an 'unbelievable book' by an English writer who was the dance critic of The Observer, calling it 'a stunning book about fishing' that interweaves fishing with serious life events including war trauma and IRA violence.

Referenced at 00:00:08

Fishing in Utopia

by Andrew Brown

McGuane describes recently getting this book about a fishing fanatic in Sweden during the period of Swedish utopian society, using fishing as a lens to observe social changes in Scandinavia.

Referenced at 00:00:08

The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

McGuane uses this as an example of how literature uniquely captures the atmosphere of a time period, saying 'You're never going to get the feeling for the twenties that you're gonna get from reading the Great Gatsby.'

Referenced at 00:00:08

The Art of Forgetting

by Lewis Hyde

McGuane references this as 'a great book by Lewis Hyde that's just being reviewed right now about the art of forgetting,' discussing how one can't be chained by the past.

Referenced at 00:00:08

Starlight Angling Club

by None

Mentioned as one of the books by a wonderful fishing writer named Harry (last name unclear in transcript) whose works were 'so intermeshed with life.'

Referenced at 00:00:08