Gallatin Canyon was published by Knopf in 2006. The ten stories represent McGuane’s mastery of the short form — a control and compression that the early novels sometimes lacked. The collection was a finalist for the National Book Award.
The title story follows a real estate developer driving through the Gallatin Canyon with his girlfriend toward a land deal, their relationship disintegrating in real time as the road narrows and the pressure of what they’re about to do becomes unbearable. “Vicious Circle” traces a rancher’s life through three marriages and the horse that outlasted all of them. “Old Faithful” puts two former lovers in Yellowstone for a conversation that cannot resolve anything but cannot be avoided.
McGuane’s characteristic territory: men (usually) of middle age confronting the gap between the lives they imagined and the lives they actually have. The Montana landscape provides scale — against the Absaroka Range, against the Yellowstone River, human failures are both diminished (the world is indifferent) and clarified (there is nowhere to hide from yourself in open country).
Collecting Gallatin Canyon
First edition (Knopf, New York, 2006): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine in jacket: $15–$25
- Signed first: $30–$60
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. McGuane’s best-reviewed story collection.
The Montana Stories
The ten stories in Gallatin Canyon represent McGuane at his most refined. Gone is the manic energy of the early novels; in its place is a mature, controlled prose that can shift from comedy to devastation in a single sentence. The stories follow ranchers losing their land, fishing guides losing their purpose, businessmen losing their marriages — all set against a Montana landscape that is simultaneously beautiful and indifferent to human suffering.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is McGuane a fly fisherman? One of the best in America. McGuane has fished extensively in Montana, Florida, and Argentina, and his non-fiction collections (An Outside Chance, The Longest Silence) are considered classics of angling literature. His fishing writing is notable for its lack of sentimentality — he writes about fishing the way he writes about everything else, with precision and unsentimental observation.