Nobody's Angel

by Thomas McGuane

A novel about a former soldier in Big Sky Country whose life is spiraling out of control, from the acclaimed author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts, who is "among the most arresting and fascinating [writers] of his generation" ( San Francisco Chronicle ).

In McGuane's first novel set in his famed American West, Patrick Fitzpatrick is a former soldier, a fourth-generation cowboy, and a whiskey addict. His grandfather wants to run away to act in movies, his sister wants to burn the house down, and his new stallion is bent on killing all of them urgently require attention. But increasingly Patrick himself is spiraling out of control, into that region of romantic misadventure and vanishing possibilities that is Thomas McGuane's Montana. Nowhere has McGuane mapped that territory more precisely—or with such tenderhearted lunacy—than in Nobody's Angel , a novel that places him in a genre of his own.

Genres: Fiction, Westerns, Novels, Literature, Audiobook

240 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 1982

About the author

Thomas Francis McGuane III is an American writer. His work includes ten novels, short fiction and screenplays, as well as three collections of essays devoted to his life in the outdoors. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Cutting Horse Association Members Hall of Fame and the Fly-Fishing Hall of Fame.

McGuane's early novels were noted for a comic appreciation for the irrational core of many human endeavors, multiple takes on the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. His later writing reflected an increasing devotion to family relationships and relationships with the natural world in the changing American West, primarily Montana, where he has made his home since 1968, and where his last five novels and many of his essays are set. He has three children, Annie, Maggie and Thomas.

Reviews

[Carter Holt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this one cause I noticed Peter McCallister on Home Alone was reading it on the plane. Now I know why he had such a concentrated expression on his face while reading it. But honestly no level of concentration helped me solve this riddle of a story. I gave it 2 stars instead of 1 because there was some odd thing about the writing that made me keep reading--I couldn't decide if it was brilliant or garbage. It rarely made any sense. The dialogue and action was like observing an alien's simulation of earthling relationships: it was disconnected and unemotional despite having moments meant to be emotional (2 suicides and I couldn't care less). A bizarre book.

[Murray · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had this book on my shelf for about 20 years. What finally sparked me to read it was that I found out he was good friends with (and admired by) Warren Zevon. I enjoyed the story and McGuane's brilliant prose and look forward to reading more of his works.

[Leola · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I loved McGuane's evocative descriptions of horses and the Montana landscape, something about the gender subtext rankled me.

His main character loves horses, in particular his own mare Leafly, and describes their habits and characters with grace, accuracy, and appreciation. McGuane's Patrick Fitzpatrick is not so generous with the women in his life, even the ostensible love(s) of his life Marion and Claire, nor his sister Mary. The women in this novel are either crazy, conniving, or so seductive as to be addictive. In any case, Patrick, despite his near perfection--the only thing he needs at age 36 is bridgework--is a victim. Of course, he's mostly a victim of his own drives, to drink, to hit, to cheat, to lie. Nevertheless, unless I'm missing something, he appears to be driven to these weaknesses by the women in his life.

I say all this with a certain regret. I really liked the book and wanted to give it a higher rating, if only because so few modern novels capture the rich emotion many of us have for our horses, and the individual characters they exhibit.

Certainly, I will read more about McGuane and read more work by him before I form anything remotely like a solid opinion of his male characters' attitude toward women.

[Charles White · Rating 3 out of 5]

'70s McGuane can lead to no shortage of eye rolling, but even so, you might titter behind your hand a few times.

[A.J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Former tank captain Patrick Fitzpatrick returns from Germany to run the family ranch with his grandfather. His father is dead, and his sister is a victim of the family's apparent hereditary mental illness. Fitzpatrick himself is an alcoholic who suffers from "sadness for no reason." He seems to have no raison d'etre, until he falls in love -- but the object of his affection just happens to be married.

The first of McGuane's novels set in Montana, Nobody's Angel is quieter and more rueful than anything that preceded it. His prose fireworks aren't entirely gone, but they're much diminished. Gone is the comedy. Nobody's Angel is perhaps his bleakest work.

It also stands as one of his best. Although some readers will be put off by the novel's pessimistic tone, Fitzpatrick emerges as a sympathetic figure. The characters are sharply drawn, the writing is flawless, and the conclusion devastating -- McGuane's writing here has, for the first time, real emotional depth. This remains among my favourite McGuane novels, even if it is his least optimistic.

[Jim Leckband · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's nice to just have an easy going book to sit and enjoy. I've had a few corvees lately. (I apologize for the four dollar word - I remember it from my academic days when a referee on a paper I wrote said that reading the paper was a corvee. Yeah, dude, I bet your papers are golden s(*& and the referees worshiped every pompous word you excreted. There, my vengeance is complete, O random referee dude.)

In "Nobody's Angel" we have a Montanan, Patrick Fitzpatrick, coming back to the family ranch from tank-piloting in Europe. His father died test piloting aircraft - we get the notion that Patrick is very Earth-bound. He comes back to an aging patriarch, a mad sister and the bad-news wife of a rich oil Oklahoman new to the area. Fitzpatrick is definitely nobody's angel, but he isn't a *bad* guy.

Comedy and much tragedy ensues as Patrick figures out that Montana is not a good place for him, if it is for anybody, as McGuane seems to over-determine to a little bit. Written in pre-PC times, it might be a bit raw for some people now, but there are worse things to be. Like boring.

[Hobart Mariner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Satire on / prime example of the doomed self-romanticizing of a landholding class finding itself extraneous to the national projects of military expansion and natural resource extraction. The classic line is drawn between cowboys and farmers, the former being more possessed of martial prowess and thinner wives, and also more likely to die/kill themselves.

McGuane’s prose style is fun and inventive, he jazzes around a bit. Evident love of horse-riding and he’s a good sports writer. Lots of good cowboy chit chat (+an enormous field of technical lingo) but the central love story did test my patience.

Gratifying when the main character beat up the fascist dipshit newspaperman but hard not to remember only one of them is NATO’s centurion. Attitudes toward indigenous index which landowners are “good” — the original cowpokes honor them whereas the farmers and other come-latelies are more apt to fetishize them (scout for arrowheads or literally disinter them).

Really like him in small doses and think his short stories might be more my speed.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Firmly in the "it was ok" moniker of Goodreads' two-star rating. It wasn't awful. It wasn't great. It was McGuane being somewhat McGuane, but, in this reader's humble opinion, not as on-brand as typical McGuane. I actually found it a difficult journey. As one from "the West," and as one who has worked ranches extensively, and as one who has served/survived multiple deployments in the USMC, I get some of this. But, if you want "cowboys," go L'Amour, McMurtry, Grey, Wister, hell, even McCarthy. You want "dark underbelly," go Denis Johnson (e.g., "Angels"), Bukowski, McCarthy (again), even Joseph Mitchell (e.g., "Up In The Old Hotel") or Carson McCullers. This one tries too hard to be something McGuane is, historically, not. It somewhat fails in its task, but, again, not entirely. Worth your time? Meh, I don't know. Depends on your sensibilities and, frankly, patience level. I was glad to be through with this one.

[Tom Galvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

McGuane is such as master of the language that it tends to steal the thunder from the characters in this tale which is more about character and location than anything else. That might not suit everyone. 'Sadness for no reason' is what the main character is suffering from and if that grabs you as a starting point to a modern western in a lost town in Montana then off you go. I loved it.

[Tyler McGaughey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good contemporary Western sad-guy stuff. Reminiscent of Larry McMurtry's rambling, amiable late '60s-early '70s output but cut through with a keen slice of John Cassavetes's raw male trauma. You'll laugh, you'll choke up, you'll wish you had a glass of Dickel and ditch on hand.

[Theron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm quite enjoying this. A bit like Cormac MacCarthy, but funnier, and without any murders (so far).

[Griffin Wada · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rough, not much hope.

[Tim O'Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not shown; another half-star. As most books go, this earthy installment of a Montana horsing-around romance is good, but by McGuane's standards which are set considerably higher than flatlander zipcodes, just not good enough. Whether his experimentation in prose was intended to create some poetic license, or to let his stream of consciousness meander, instead, for the sake of a style-bending genre, is anyone's guess. (?) There are so many detours (whiskey-induced tangents) occasioned randomly throughout his bumpy rancher's narrative, that one is forced to hit "pause" questioning whether what was just read would be more meaningful if by careful and methodical rereading--like a water witcher retracing his steps--there might be divined some inspired context. Regrettably, came up with more dry holes than I'd care to count. The story's protagonist is a horse-smart and woman-stupid Army tank captain returned home to his family ranch from Germany. His father, a Boeing test pilot, is deceased having made a very expensive hole in the ground with an experimental aircraft. His mother is remarried to a California businessman and has his child. His full-blooded younger sister is, to put it politely, not correctly herself. Committed, eventually, to a mental institution whose therapeutic methodology spectacularly fails. Suicide, after release, is not surprising to anyone in town given her behavior. Though gifted with handling horses, Mary is a part-time prostitute, becomes impregnated by a Cheyenne ranch hand, David Catches, and oil paints her bedroom sky blue (floor, ceiling, walls, curtains, bedding and all) then sets the barn on fire. The whole Fitzpatrick family, in fact, is rather profoundly disturbed if not broken (nobody writes, or calls, or talks) and the son moves back in with his cranky grandfather who, despite the hard bark on him and criticism of his grandson's efforts, can't keep up with the homestead falling down around them, wants to pack it in, sell-out, and move his old bones into town. Deadrock; a frontier misnomer (is there any other kind?) from an attempt in the Indian Wars to settle a treaty that was deadlocked. Location for the ol' cowboy Grandad is everything. Nine Montana bars within crawling distance of his apartment overlooking the main street. A nextdoor view of the Emperial Theater. And a hop, skip and a jump from the hospital. Patrick, who narrates in first person is smitten by a golden-haired Oklahoma homecoming queen and trophy wife of a rich oil man (is there any other kind?). Being bored, he throws in with ranching up north--as either a bad investment he can write-off, or as a curious hobby--even though he doesn't ride. All hat, no horse. But he has a helicopter. Tio leaves the pretty missus, Claire, alone to Patrick who is commissioned to stud and break-in his stallion for him. Among other serviceable duties, which will create the ambivalence of a potentially life-threatening love triangle as one might expect. Lives are lost. Loves, not so much. But not the way the reader--and the characters involved--ever see it coming. No spoilers. But things get a little out of hand. Like skinning coyotes inside the dude rancher's abode (with two West Coast hunters hopped-up on amphetamines--a "Sheetrocker and Perfataper" four pelts shy of the record from out-of-state) during a whiskey binge, then leaving their carcasses to rot--the stinch, the mess of broken glassware following gunplay and what not and a hasty retreat, and well...flies. Have to confess a crude fascination with McGuane's neo-noir vision of the American West, not unlike the seething, cowboy-equivalent of Oliver Stone's "U-Turn" (1997) with Nick Nolte, Powers Boothe, Sean Penn, Jennifer Lopez, Joaquin Phoenix, and scene-stealers Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Voight. The casting (obviously) photography, editing and musical score are purely the gothic pastiche of Stone's dark genius. Speaking of detours. Anyway, McGuane's style sticks with the reader like a tick to a mongrel's ear. It's vivid and cinematic even allowing for the fact it can be hard to follow. A gnarly, lasso rope-burned thumbs-up.

[Henry Dwyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

With immaculate and unique storytelling, McGuane makes these mudane, normal environments seem surreal. He creates situations that are often normal backgrounds that devolve into madness. In Nobody's Angel, McGuane takes a oilmen, cowboys, native americans, and newsmen and turn their normal proclivities on their head.

Although the story is quite bizarre, it paints a different picture that what most expect out of the old west. I appreciate McGuane's storytelling and prose. Though his talents are not once in a lifetime - his books almost always make for an entertaining read with an almost Lynchian quality to them.

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cowboy drunkard, a gorgeous temptress and her addled jealous husband.

Metaphors concerning horses. Barroom brawls, whorehouses, death; Deadrock Montana. Good stuff. Certainly not a book for girly men or dandies.

My favorite character, the only one with any redeemable qualities, is the cowboy's horse. The author certainly knows horses and the description of them in the story is impeccable.

Gritty, dark, depressing. The sort of book that is complimented by a whiskey ditch or two. Heck, bring a bottle and get wide.

[Ray Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

The narrator's voice can be, at times, hypnotic, reminiscent of Kerouac's On the Rode (stream of consciousness). The hard and beautiful country of Montana can leaves the reader feeling the fullness and emptiness of Patrick Fitzpatrick's emotions. Claire is the temptress who soothes and inflames his longings. Ultimately, McGuane has written a novel about a cowboy, vet (WWII tank captain) who is living with PTSD.

[Dhiaeddine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Après avoir lu Animal Farm et The Trial je trouve une difficulté à suivre la lecture de ce livre qui n'arrive pas à provoquer mon intérêt.

[Lassie · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a lover of Jim Harrison’s writing, I’ve read this McGuane’s book. I knew that I was going to like the “montana style”, how they make you think to the main person and like him. I found it a little bit long at the end and at the same time I just wanted to know the end, so ... It’s always a good book when you WANT to know how it’s going finally.

[R. M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

A reviewer of this novel wrote this "is arguably one of the best serious novels of recent times," and all I can say is they must have read a different book. In my view it is an example of a talented writer going through the motions. It has a couple of characters who might be interesting if the author was interested enough to make them interesting. The final pages are flat out disappointing.

[Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's about the new West in Montana, where new arrivals from elsewhere are changing the environment and beginning to hangout with the old cowboys. Army captain arriving back home is trying to find his way and as he says lose his "hard to-shake case of sadness-for-no-reason.

[Julia Pond]

I read this for a second time (read it long ago, probably in college). I still think McGuane is talented, but I was struck at how much darker this book seemed to me now, with some self-indulgent or just plain lazy kinds of lapses by the author.

[Paul McBride · Rating 4 out of 5]

McGuane's books remind me of Hemingway, if Hemingway wrote primarily about Cowboys, men have trouble growing old,much less growing up, and Montana. For me at least his books remain readable in the 21st century unlike much of Hemingway.

[EB Fitzsimons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Crisp, snappy writing, great one liners, but my interest petered out just after halfway. The main character seemed to have so much going for him that even as he headed towards trouble, I didn't much care whether he found his way out of it or not.

[Matt Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

So many beautiful scenes... a book full of grief and joy and family.

[Brian Beatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not his worst, not his best.

[John McNulty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid. Thomas McGuane writes about Western life in his own idiosyncratic fashion that is at times a little hard to decipher. But it does create an original vision and feeling that is hard to deny.

[Patrick Schultheis · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t like it. The plot meandered and the characters were distasteful.

[Estefannia P · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure this is a stunning book but the language and writing style threw me off and made it confusing for me to really fall into the story. I hope to revisit McGuane one day

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

So what we got now, is sadness-for-no-reason

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thomas McGuane writes well—a lot of his short, strong sentences, have the quality of koan, or maybe haiku—but I get the sense this is probably not the place to start with the man. Or maybe everything he’s written reads sort of like this. I suppose I’ll have to read something else by him to see whether that’s the case.
Anyway, “Nobody’s Angel” follows the story of Patrick Fitzpatrick, an ex-tank commander who served in the American Army of Occupation in Germany during the Cold War. Now he’s back home on a ranch in Montana that’s belonged to his family for generations, trying to find a life for himself. The main problem is that he is incredibly restless, still searching, very intelligent and passionate without much of an outlet for all his pent-up energies.
Another of his problems is that he’s started sleeping with a married woman. Even worse, the man they’re cheating on is an alright type. Quirky and more than a bit crazy, but not a woman-beater or a cheater himself and therefore not someone you can rationalize cheating on.
Most of the book follows the dance these three do with each other. It becomes fairly obvious early on that things are heading for a disaster, but—as in a classic Western—a certain decorum is observed. A gunslinger doesn’t just kick in the batwing doors at the saloon and go guns blazing at the poker table. He waits at the edge of town for the man he has a beef with to find him.
Seeing “Nobody’s Angel” as a sort of neo-Western is not novel to me. It’s something McGuane’s fans have noted, and something the self-conscious protagonist notes himself in ruminative asides. Maybe that self-consciousness is what rubbed me the wrong way about the book. The feigned world-weariness of the main character jars oddly against the feeling he’s obviously experiencing every moment, and to an excruciating degree. I get that this is sort of the point, that a man, even in the postmodern world, is still required to tough it out in a place like rural Montana. But after a while all the koan and haiku and one hand clapping horseshit started getting on my nerves.
If you want to break horses, break horses. If you want to wax poetic and philosophic, do that. Don’t try to do both at the same time, unless you’re Larry McMurtry, which McGuane, though he draws the comparison, certainly is not. At least not this time out.