Kerplunk!: Stories » (Unabridged, 6 CDs, 6 hrs. 30 min.)

Patrick F. McManus is a renowned outdoor writer, humorist, and longtime columnist for Outdoor Life and Field & Stream. His most recent books are the Sheriff Bo Tully mysteries Avalanche and The Blight Way. He is the author of many other books, including such runaway New York Times bestsellers as The Grasshopper Trap, The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw, and Real Ponies Don't Go Oink! He lives in Spokane, Washington.

This is the latest hilarious collection of folksy, humorous, and wonderfully wise stories about country life from the bestselling author of The Blight Way.

Patrick F. McManus has garnered legions of faithful fans with his monthly column in Outdoor Life and his many celebrated books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Grasshopper Trap and The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw. The humor and warmth of Kerplunk! put the book right up there with the very best of McManus. A rollicking blend of Dave Barry and Garrison Keillor, with a twist of Mark Twain, McManus is an American classic whose wry, curmudgeonly tales appeal to real outdoorsmen and the armchair variety alike. There are nearly 2 million copies of his books in print.

The stories in Kerplunk! travel the byways and highways of the Pacific Northwest, bringing to life offbeat, down-home characters who hope their grandchildren can pick the lock on the gun safe because...

Publishers Weekly

This gently humorous essay collection by Outdoor Lifecolumnist McManus (The Bear in the Attic) explores hunting and fishing in the Pacific Northwest. As he wryly explains in "The Kind of Guy I Am," McManus's literary persona is an aw-shucks middle-aged married guy with four daughters who dreams of his flies, reels, waders and snowshoes while on vacation with his wife in Venice. Hoping to someday be like Rancid Crabtree, an old man who lives in a "slab shack" against the mountain and does nothing all day but hunt and fish ("The Ideal Life"), McManus and his buddy Fenton Quagmire jettison the high-tech camping gear and attempt to rough it Thoreau-style ("Back to Basics"), with predictably hilarious results. Other tales involve learning how to be patient while fishing ("A Dimple in Time") and enlightening one's fishing partners on how the moon determines the tides ("Where's Mr. Sun?"). McManus narrates his woodsy stories with a laid-back style that will earn many smiles of fond recognition from anyone who's heard a guide say, "I know there used to be a trail here." (Nov.)

Contents

Kerplunk! 1

The Art of Trailering 7

Silent but Deadly 13

Excuses Excuses 19

Splitting Infinitives 27

Don't Annoy My Inner Frontiersman 33

Camping Out with Lewis & Clark 39

Strange Meets His Match 45

"Uh-oh!" (And Other Things Guides Shouldn't Say) 51

The Ideal Life 57

A Creek Too Far 63

The Perfect Hunt 69

Thirty Days 77

Where's Mr. Sun? 83

The Lucky Guy 89

Many Are Called 95

A Dimple in Time 101

Spare Me the Details (What Are the Odds of a Double Flat?) 105

The Haircut 113

Bed-and-Breakfast 119

Lenny 125

The Winter of Eighteen Months 133

Christmas Goose 139

Peak Experience 147

Back to Basics 155

People Who Hunt 161

For Every Smell, a Nose 167

The Ordinary 173

The Kind of Guy I Am 179

High-Centered (And Other Life Lessons) 185

A Look Too Many 191

The Eighty 195

Performance Netting 201

The Pasture 207

Predicament 213

Dalliance 219