by Pa Rock
Reader
While recently searching for a copy of Thomas McGuane's second novel, The Bushwhacked Piano, a book that I originally read not too long after it came out in 1971, I came across a statement which indicated that McGuane considered Panama as sort of his high-water mark as a writer - so I decided to order a copy of that instead. McGuane went on to publish several more novels and story collections - as well as some very successful Hollywood screenplays including The Missouri Breaks, Rancho Deluxe, Tom Horn - as well as the screen version of his own novel Ninety-two in the Shade.
McGuane, in fact, became very Hollywood during the 1970's and for two years during that decade he was married to actress Margot Kidder. But McGuane must have also had a strong connection with Key West during the 1970's because those are the streets that his protagonist, Chester Hunnicutt Pomeroy - a.k.a. "Chet" roams and wanders during the action in the novel Panama, which McGuane published in 1978.
(Spoiler alert: Panama is a novel about Key West, Florida, and has almost nothing at all to do with the country of Panama other than a few veiled mentions which paint it as a place of refuge - where people can go to live in safety and a climate of sanity.)
I have seen Key West through multiple perspectives: as a married man visiting the island with his young family, as a single man looking for a bit of adventure, and as a harried cruise ship tourist rushing ashore for a quick couple of beers and a few tee-shirts. I assumed that with those varied views of the small yet highly commercial island, I probably had a fairly complete overview of the place.
But that was before I encountered burned out rockstar Chet Pomeroy and let him take me on an extended tour of Key West, a trip that allowed me to see a technicolor view of the characters and haunts of the island through the filter of Chet's psychosis. Chet, who during his heyday as a rocker, had managed to offend much of the civilized world, had moved back to his hometown in the mid-seventies where he began some process (known only to himself, apparently) of sorting himself out - and where he also "voted for Carter." He managed to spend most of his waking hours looking to score drugs, get laid, or scare the bejeezus out of staid tourists from the Midwest.
Chet is relentlessly pursuing Catherine, the love of his life who shares his fondness for drugs and sex, and he is avoiding his father, a millionaire who is visiting the island, due to Chet's firm hallucination that his father died years ago in a Boston subway fire. Chet also believes that the Missouri bank-robber, Jesse James, is still alive and speaks with him.
Key West is a carnival at just about any time of the year, but when Thomas McGuane and his alter-ego Chet Pomeroy are leading the parade, it's a full-blown Mardi Gras celebration, complete with side attractions like grave-robbers, sex in odd places, villainous cops, dogs with no names, and plenty of blood and vomit.
Panama let me experience Key West in ways I never intended. It's a most interesting read.
Reader
While recently searching for a copy of Thomas McGuane's second novel, The Bushwhacked Piano, a book that I originally read not too long after it came out in 1971, I came across a statement which indicated that McGuane considered Panama as sort of his high-water mark as a writer - so I decided to order a copy of that instead. McGuane went on to publish several more novels and story collections - as well as some very successful Hollywood screenplays including The Missouri Breaks, Rancho Deluxe, Tom Horn - as well as the screen version of his own novel Ninety-two in the Shade.
McGuane, in fact, became very Hollywood during the 1970's and for two years during that decade he was married to actress Margot Kidder. But McGuane must have also had a strong connection with Key West during the 1970's because those are the streets that his protagonist, Chester Hunnicutt Pomeroy - a.k.a. "Chet" roams and wanders during the action in the novel Panama, which McGuane published in 1978.
(Spoiler alert: Panama is a novel about Key West, Florida, and has almost nothing at all to do with the country of Panama other than a few veiled mentions which paint it as a place of refuge - where people can go to live in safety and a climate of sanity.)
I have seen Key West through multiple perspectives: as a married man visiting the island with his young family, as a single man looking for a bit of adventure, and as a harried cruise ship tourist rushing ashore for a quick couple of beers and a few tee-shirts. I assumed that with those varied views of the small yet highly commercial island, I probably had a fairly complete overview of the place.
But that was before I encountered burned out rockstar Chet Pomeroy and let him take me on an extended tour of Key West, a trip that allowed me to see a technicolor view of the characters and haunts of the island through the filter of Chet's psychosis. Chet, who during his heyday as a rocker, had managed to offend much of the civilized world, had moved back to his hometown in the mid-seventies where he began some process (known only to himself, apparently) of sorting himself out - and where he also "voted for Carter." He managed to spend most of his waking hours looking to score drugs, get laid, or scare the bejeezus out of staid tourists from the Midwest.
Chet is relentlessly pursuing Catherine, the love of his life who shares his fondness for drugs and sex, and he is avoiding his father, a millionaire who is visiting the island, due to Chet's firm hallucination that his father died years ago in a Boston subway fire. Chet also believes that the Missouri bank-robber, Jesse James, is still alive and speaks with him.
Key West is a carnival at just about any time of the year, but when Thomas McGuane and his alter-ego Chet Pomeroy are leading the parade, it's a full-blown Mardi Gras celebration, complete with side attractions like grave-robbers, sex in odd places, villainous cops, dogs with no names, and plenty of blood and vomit.
Panama let me experience Key West in ways I never intended. It's a most interesting read.
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