An Outside Chance: Essays on Sport

by Thomas McGuane

Nineteen essays constituting an intense personal account of ten years of sporting experience range from hunting and fishing to sailing and steer roping and encompass mountains, oceans, rodeos, bird dogs, and small streams in Michigan

Genres: Essays, Sports, Nonfiction

243 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Thomas Francis McGuane III is an American writer. His work includes ten novels, short fiction and screenplays, as well as three collections of essays devoted to his life in the outdoors. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, National Cutting Horse Association Members Hall of Fame and the Fly-Fishing Hall of Fame.

McGuane's early novels were noted for a comic appreciation for the irrational core of many human endeavors, multiple takes on the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. His later writing reflected an increasing devotion to family relationships and relationships with the natural world in the changing American West, primarily Montana, where he has made his home since 1968, and where his last five novels and many of his essays are set. He has three children, Annie, Maggie and Thomas.

Reviews

[Richard Gorelick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, very good, when I knew what was going on (only sometimes in the fishing essays). I’m not a sailor or a hunter or an angler or a biker or a fan of rodeos or motorcross. But I am a fan of good righting, so I enjoyed them all, but “Roping from A to B” is amazing, his or anybody’s best.

[Allan MacDonell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Men writing about the correct way to be men is a genre that will never go away, although right now it’s out of vogue in many literary circles. There’s a lot of fishin’, and huntin’ and horseback ridin’ and a small amount of motorcycle daredevilry in Thomas McGuane’s Outside Chance: Essays on Sport, all of it presented in a manly voice that presumes to know best the beliefs and behaviors of real men. I plucked a first edition of this book out of a tiny mini-library outside a house that I pass walking my dog every morning. My dog is a very manly dog, and he is invariably heeled and curbed in a way that displays very correct manners. On top of that, when I pinch a first edition for free, I feel obligated to read the book, and I’m glad I honored that completion principle once I started Outside Chance.

[Peter Gooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great fun! Early essays on sport. Oh for a Vincent Black Shadow!

[Chris Pariseau · Rating 4 out of 5]

While at times one can get lost in the jargon of some of McGuane's more eclectic writing topics (the differences in the styles and training of cutting horses and the ins and outs of ranching being some of the most impenetrable sections for this particular angler-reader), the passages in which his writing reaches into the core motivations for man's connection with sport are some of the finest one will ever come across in this genre. In short, this river of words yields some true keepers.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book was well-written, but the material was not my cup of tea. A ton of stories about fishing that I found little interest in. There were a few parts that kept my interest, but overall was not a book I enjoyed.

[L.C. · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book based on a reference to it in another book I thoroughly enjoyed, but I only enjoyed a few essays.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

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