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“Thataway”
by Thomas McGuane
from the May 27, 2024 issue of The New Yorker
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[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” text_color=””]I[/fusion_dropcap]t’s always a joy to see a new story by Thomas McGuane! And these days we should absolutely treasure any that show up since who knows how much longer McGuane, at 84 years old, will be publishing stories.
The two sisters were growing old now, but they went on gazing toward Palm Springs from this windblown prairie town as though to Mecca. Each was a widow, Mildred thrice over—her last husband had died after decades of work as a brakeman for the Burlington Northern—and now the sisters, if not on public assistance, were close to it, and, despite their uncertain compatibility, forced to live together in the same house, the house where they had grown up, with a brother whose success had once been the town’s biggest story. Now Cooper lived in Palm Springs, within walking distance of the former home of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and had among his conveyances a helicopter, with a portrait of him twirling a lariat painted on the side, which he used for visits to the chain of furniture stores he owned. Although, for a time, Cooper’s home town cited him when listing its glories or courting a polluter unwelcome elsewhere, he never came back. He didn’t remember his origins fondly. He remembered being pitied and ridiculed, ashamed of his shiftless parents and their binges.
I hope everyone has a good start to a new week! Please let us know how you felt about “Thataway” (or anything else McGuane related) below! I’ll be back on once I’ve read the story.
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[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” text_color=””]W[/fusion_dropcap]e are fortunate every time we get a new story from Thomas McGuane, who started publishing over fifty years ago and is now 82. Hopefully there are even more on their way!
[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ text_color=””]I[/fusion_dropcap] love Thomas McGuane’s stories. Now that he is in his 80s, I wonder how many more we will get, so I treat them each like a gift. This week we get “Not Here You Don’t.” That this is his second story this year (and third since his 2018 volume of stories came out) suggests that McGuane isn’t even slowing down.
[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ text_color=””]I[/fusion_dropcap]’m always excited to see Thomas McGuane in The New Yorker. We used to get one or two new stories per year, but it’s slowed down a tad in recent years. That is understandable; in December he turned 81.
[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″]T[/fusion_dropcap]homas McGuane is a long-time favorite of mine. I enjoy his fluid writing and his focus on some forgotten parts of America, often close to where I grew up in the Rocky Mountain west (this week’s story one takes place in Montana). I also like that he focuses on short stories.
[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″]T[/fusion_dropcap]homas McGuane is one of our most reliably productive short story writers. Every year, we get one or, if we’re fortunate, two of his stories in The New Yorker. I really enjoy his work, I would say he’s also one of the most reliably satisfying as well. His next collection, Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories, comes out next March and is definitely on my radar.
