Sporting Club — Thomas McGuane

When James Quinn and Vernor Stanton reunite at the Centennial Club, the scene of many a carefree childhood summer, Stanton marks the occasion by shooting his friend in the heart. The good news is that the bullet is made of wax. The bad news is that the Mephistophelian Stanton wants Quinn to help him wreak havoc upon this genteel enclave of weekend sportsmen: "May I predict that this is not going to be the usual boring, phlegmatic summer?"

In this hilarious novel, Thomas McGuane launches a renegade aristocrat and a mild-mannered fly-fisherman onto a collision course with each other and with the overbred scions of Michigan's robber barony. Escalating from practical jokes to guerrilla warfare, and from screwball comedy to mayhem worth of today's headlines, The Sporting Club is a foray into the sclerotic heart of American machismo.