Keep the Change

Nearing middle age, painter and cowboy Joe Starling contemplates the relationships and ties of his youth. ``McGuane makes what could have been an indecipherable personal quest into a vivid, even suspenseful story, in language that seems to have been stripped clean of excess, reduced to only the most evocative descriptions and accurate emotions. Even for a writer of his standing, a novel as unfaltering as this one is a rarity,'' lauded PW. (Nov.)