Sam Lipsyte reads Thomas McGuane's "Cowboy," and discusses it with The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman. "Cowboy" was published in the September 19, 2005, issue of The New Yorker and is collected in "Gallatin Canyon."
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
This month we're going to hear cowboy by Thomas McQuaine.
The old fella had several peculiarities to him, most of which I've forgotten.
He was one of the few fellas I ever heard of who would actually jump up and down on his hat if he got mad enough.
The story was chosen by Sam Lipsight, the author of the Ask Homeland and other novels.
His latest story, Deniers, is in the May 2 issue of the magazine.
Hi, Sam.
Hi.
So McWane published his first novel, the Sporting Club, in the late sixties, and he's put out eleven books since then, including last year's novel driving on the Rim and the collection Gallatin Canyon, which includes the story that we're looking at today.
When did you start reading him?
Well, I remember discovering him in my late teens.
I came upon a copy of the bushwhacked piano, and that book really excited me and gave me sort of a sense of the possibilities of fiction at that time and still today.
So then I just grabbed everything I could and followed his career.
And as he wrote more books, I read them.
And so I've been a big fan for a long time.
Did your parents have the book kicking around?
Was that where you found it?
No, it was one of those vintage contemporaries, if you remember.