Starts like a lost dog, sniffing through open country incidents, recounting episode after episode, meeting multitudes, surviving his parents and small town scuffles, and finding enough sex along the way to keep him panting. Ends like the dog who picked up a scent and went straight after the lady skunk. The middle wanders past his trial by the petty, the unforgiving, the weak, and the sick. Berl, the lost doc telling all and trying to figure out even more, does know medicine and his description of stitching a badly cut foot makes me queasy, as I would watching the procedure. Some hunting, lots of confusion, a little fishing, a few friends, and a whole, messy life off in Montana.
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Irving Berlin Pickett, known as Berl, is a doctor in Montana. He grew up with parents that veered from overly religious to overly drunk, “crazier than pet coons.” A self-described oversexed “obsequious ninny” and “natural born, but not stupid, oaf,” Berl’s early sex education came through his aunt. Once he becomes a general practitioner, Berl grows and evolves into “an odd combination of competence and imbecility.”

McGuane imbues Berl with a deep sense of flawed humanity. Like many of us, he’s baffled by life and tries to make sense of it the best he can. There’s a calm complexity about him.

Death, and the meaning of life, occupy a good amount of Berl’s thoughts. McGuane devotes just the right amount of time to him tending to the death of good friend. Berl, and McGuane’s writing, lack all pretension. This is a fine book. ( )

Reading a book by Thomas Mcguane is often a time consuming a affair. His writing style is not for situations where there are stimulus or distractions around you as there are usually enough of these in his stories. I do like his books but I need to insert them in between about 100 other books, before I have the fortitude to get through one.
Tho,as McGuane books are NOT for people who:
1. Are looking for a quick read
2. People you want to get from point A to point B in the shortest amount of time.
3. People looking for I depth plot.
With all this being said I enjoyed reading Driving On The Rim, the author has aged and his writing has followed. This story, about a small time doctor in Livingston Montana who ain't seem to function like anyone around him reminds me of a line from the Author's real life famous Brother in law Jimmy Buffett who described the song " A Prate Looks at Forty" as being about a man who can't seem to find his occupation in the 20th century, while the book does wind up ending I. The 21st century, it seemed apropos. ( )

There's so much more going on with this novel than at first appears. The story arc is skeletal, even anecdotal, at first, but each subsequent vignette reveals a deeper understanding of the complexity of the protagonist -- a small-town Montana doctor who would be reluctant to allow such personal revelation. The reader almost has to wrestle the undercurrents from the first-person narrator. His neglectful parenting by a mother obsessed with fundamentalist Christianity and a father obsessed with his war experiences exposes Berl to a series of challenges and opportunities, especially as he is raised by alternate parents. The mistakes he makes in the current story could easily -- too easily -- be pinned on his parents and flaws of his upbringing, but Berl all too willingly shoulders the burden of blame for every mis-step, including certain events the reader quickly absolves him for. (This reader, anyway). The bonus for me in this novel was the frequent and lovely description of Montana. For the short visit to a bar in Checkerboard alone, it was well worth reading. I'm definitely now a McGuane fan. His fly fishing book, The Longest Silence is magical, and now I can't wait to discover more of his fiction. ( )

I liked the storytelling of this book, though the main character's oddness got to be a bit much at times, and the breaks and jumps from one anecdote to another were sometimes off-putting. While I liked the novel, I am not sure I am a huge fan of McGaune and his writing. I also read his The Cadence of Grass. I do the love the settings -- Montana -- and I am engaged in the reading, but I'm not head-over-heels for his books. I will say McGuane's dark humor and funny insights on life and culture -- as well as his appreciation for nature. ( )