Panama

Thomas McGuane has made Panama a high-wire act of extravagant emotion and steel-nerved prose. As he haunts Key West, pestering family, threatening a potential in-law with a .38, and attempting to crucify himself on his ex's door out of sheer lovesickness, Chester emerges as the pure archetype of the McGuane hero. Out of his struggle to rejoin the human race--and the imminent possibility that he may die trying--McGuane has fashioned a harrowing and hilarious novel of 'alligators, macadam, the sea, sticky sex, laughter, and sudden death.

Thomas McGuane lives in Sweet Grass County, Montana. He is the author of eight previous novels and a collection of stories, as well as two collections of essays.