Ninety-two in the Shade Paperback - 1995

"Full of surprises and rewards and an exhilaration one feels only rarely.... I offer a gentle exhortation -- please read this book." -- Newsday

Tiring of the company of junkies and burn-outs, Thomas Skelton goes home to Key West to take up a more wholesome life. But things fester in America's utter South. And Skelton's plans to become a skiff guide in the shining blue subtropical waters place him on a collision course with Nichol Dance, who has risen to the crest of the profession by dint of infallible instincts and a reputation for homicide. Out of their deadly rivalry, Thomas McGuane has constructed a novel with the impetus of a thriller and the heartbroken humor that is his distinct contribution to American prose.

"Thomas McGuane makes the page, the paragraph, the sentence itself a record of continuous imaginative activity.... He is an important as well as a brilliant novelist."

-- The New York Times Book Review

"McGuane's sense of place, his harsh and delicate exactness of detail are at their keenest."

-- Newsweek

"Few writers have explored our national malaise as persistently -- or as elegantly -- as Thomas McGuane, a writer whose command of the language has helped define our American loneliness." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

THOMAS McGUANE lives on a ranch in McLeod, Montana. He is the author of ten novels, including the National Book Award-nominated Ninety-two in the Shade, three works of nonfiction, and four collections of stories. His work has won numerous awards, including the Rosenthal Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and has been anthologized in the Best American Stories, Best American Essays, and Best American Sporting Essays.