A Fine and Pleasant Misery is a riotous compilation of twenty-seven short stories previously published in field and currentY outdoor life magazines I felt at home while reading it, like I was with Pat every step of the way. It seemed as if we had the same childhood experiences: hunting, fishing, camping, and growing up in the wild and in small communities in the Pacific Northwest Inland Empire.

McManus utilized a quirky cast of well-developed characters, including Crazy Eddie Muldoon (Pat’s childhood friend), Gram, Rancid Crabtree (the cranky, lazy old lumberjack), Retch Sweeney (Pat’s growing-up friend), Cousin Buck (dispensing copious amounts of misinformation), The Troll (Pat’s much older and annoying sister), and Henry P. Grogan (owner and peddler of Grogan’s War Surplus); with them he painted dialogues and humorous events. His explanation of the difference between a “Creek” and a “Crick” is classic!

As my son, Trevor, pointed out, many of these situations have parallels to the camping, hunting, and fishing experiences I graciously forced upon him during his youth (probably child abuse motives). That is the genius of McManus, it allows us to feel each one of the experiences provided by him as if we were there. In Rancid Crabtree’s “gol-dang” words, it was a fun read!

McManus has been writing and publishing humorous short stories for outdoor magazines since the 1970s. He has written and published sixteen hilarious books about hunting, fishing, camping, and farming in rural northern Idaho. Those books include: A Fine and Nice Misery (a pure classic); They shoot canoes, don’t they?; Never smell a gift fish; The grasshopper trap; Rubber feet and white tail hairs; Whatchagot stew; The night the bear ate Goombaw; Real ponies don’t Oink!; The Good Samaritan strikes again; How did I get this way; Towards the twilight, complain endlessly (my favorite of all time); Never cry “Arp!”; Kid Camping by Aaiii! Compress; The bear in the attic; the horse in my garage; Y Kerplunk! Each of these books consists of twenty to thirty stories and all are fun for those who appreciate the humor of nature lovers. For the heavy, serious, or unemotional reader, I would look elsewhere for entertainment.

McManus has also written The deer on a bicycle, Excursions to the writing of humor; and this story gives excellent advice to aspiring humor writers.

More recently, McManus has completed five books in a new and unusual genre for a humor writer: crime mysteries! These riveting stories introduce the manly, yet poetic and artistic fictional character: Sheriff Bo Tully, and include The Path of Ruin; Avalanche; The Double-Jack murders; The Huckleberry Murders (my favorite of this genre), and the Tamarack murders. I highly recommend all the artistic efforts of Patrick F. McManus.

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