Panama — Thomas McGuane

Panama is the harrowing and hilarious story of a washed-up rock star with kamikaze passion in Key West -- and is widely considered to be the most autobiographical novel of one of our most important Americal writers, the author of Ninety-two in the Shade and Cloudbursts

Chester Pomeroy is a one-time rock star turned casualty of illicit substances. In the hands of Thomas McGuane, Chester's story is a high-wire act of extravagant emotion and steel-nerved prose. As he haunts Key West, pestering family, threatening a potential in-law with a .38, and attempting to crucify himself on his ex's door out of sheer lovesickness, Chester emerges as the pure archetype of the McGuane hero.