Keep the Change (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

KEEP THE CHANGE is a strange book, although on the surface it appears to be fairly conventional. The story begins in Montana in the 1960’s; Joe Starling is a teenager working for the summer on the small ranch which his father has leased to a neighboring rancher with a much bigger spread. When Joe meets Ellen Overstreet, the rancher’s lovely daughter, romance ensues, followed by a beating at the hands of Ellen’s local boyfriend, Billy Kelton. Joe finishes high school (the Kentucky Military Institute), goes on to Yale, and becomes a successful painter--only to find himself unable to paint any more. He migrates from New York to Key West, takes up with a beautiful and eccentric Cuban woman, Astrid, and finds work as an illustrator of manuals for everything from a gas-powered fire log to an automatic cat feeder.

When that life palls as well--several more years have passed--Joe follows an impulse and drives back to Montana, where Ellen, now a schoolteacher, is living apart from her husband, Billy. Having travelled full circle, Joe must come to terms with himself.

Thus summarized, KEEP THE CHANGE sounds like a piece of modest realism. In fact, sentence by sentence, the reader has a sense that this whole fictional contraption might fall apart at any moment. Conversations begin plausibly and shift imperceptibly into vigorous oddity. Minor characters give set speeches with Dickensian flair. Indeed, McGuane invites the reader to see the absurdity that not only bedevils his characters but also threatens to undermine the novelist’s art. He performs with the comic aplomb of a clown on a tightrope.

Sources for Further Study

The Atlantic. CCLXIV, October, 1989, p.115.

Library Journal. CXIV, July, 1989, p.109.

Los Angeles Times Book Review. September 17, 1989, p.3.

New York. XXII, September 4, 1989, p.60.

The New York Times Book Review. XCIV, September 24, 1989, p.3.

Newsweek. CXIV, September 18, 1989, p.76.

Publishers Weekly. CCXXXV, June 30, 1989, p.85.

Time. CXXXIV, October 16, 1989, p.90.

The Washington Post Book World. XIX, September 30, 1989, p.5.