Kerplunk!: Stories

Patrick F. McManus's gently comic stories about outdoor life have earned him millions of fans worldwide. With Kerplunk!, McManus delivers a collection of folksy, wonderfully wise depictions of country life worthy of Mark Twain.

In these tall tales, McManus and his buddies learn how not to net a fish, why you should never get your hair cut by someone who's mad at you, what to do when a deer wanders into camp but your sleeping bag has frozen shut, and how to avoid bird-dog flatulence.

Traveling the highways and byways of the Pacific Northwest, the delightful backcountry characters of Kerplunk! understand how a life of hunting and fishing — and its inherent potential for misadventure — can resonate with larger meaning. McManus's characters know exactly why it costs $500 to make a fly lure that retails for $2; why installing a boat trailer hookup can lead to divorce; and, most important, why you should always listen for the sound of your fishing line hitting the water — because in life as it is in fishing, you don't know you're in the water until you hear the kerplunk!

These wry, curmudgeonly tales appeal to real outdoorsmen and the armchair variety alike. Often nostalgic, occasionally philosophical, and always funny, the stories in Kerplunk! reaffirm Patrick F. McManus's reputation as an American classic.

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

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.)

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.