In the dark sacrosanct Jesus Christ appears in a tourniquet divorced and free while the ridges come down hard in between the cataplexy of north and east — and there's horses. Maybe I'm being harsh but this book is not super accessible. In fact in terms of style it is one of the most inscrutable I've read. It's in the dialogue too! McGuane writes a lot like how I write - like I see myself in the automated instinctual unintelligibility, I see my own methodology. Like 5% of the time it's very nice, maybe 2% it's genius, 46% it's fine, and the remaining whatever percent I try not to think about too much. It's also a unique book because nowhere on the front or back cover besides perhaps the artwork is there any indication of its story or even content and theme. It's Five Easy Pieces, Room at the Top, that one movie with Richard Burton with the iron; it's genuinely counter-cultural and that genuine attitude of recklessness is my favorite part along surprisingly with the arcs and beats of the story which can feel cinematic when they're not being inscrutable or unintelligibly explained. Like: he's in the kitchen with his grandfather, his sister's bedroom was painted all blue including the curtains because she's crazy, but he and his grandfather don't know where she is, and then they look out the kitchen windows onto a rural west Montana ranch and the barn is on fire. It's not like the prose style helps or hurts those moments — where it hurts is in details. Would be a cool movie if the dialogue would flex.