McManus, Patrick F. 1933–

(Patrick Francis McManus)

PERSONAL: Born August 25, 1933, in Sandpoint, ID; son of Francis Edward (a logger and farmer) and Mabel Delana (an elementary school teacher) McManus; married Darlene M. Keough (a business manager), February 3, 1954; children: Kelly C. Walkup, Shannon M. McManus, Peggy F. Robideaux, Erin B. Robideaux Education: Washington State University, B.A., 1956, M.A. 1962, post-graduate study, 1965–67. Religion: Catholic. Hobbies and other interests: Outdoor sports, woodworking, traveling.

ADDRESSES: Home and office—Spokane, WA. Agent—Phyllis Westberg, Harold Ober Associates, 425 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10017.

CAREER: Daily Olympian, Olympia, WA, news reporter, 1956; Washington State University, Pullman, editor, 1956–59; Eastern Washington University, Cheney, instructor, 1959–67, assistant professor, 1967–71, associate professor, 1971–74, codirector of journalism and English, beginning 1973, professor of journalism and English, 1974–83, professor emeritus, 1983–. News reporter for KREM-TV, Spokane, WA, 1960–62.

MEMBER: Authors Guild, Outdoor Writers of America Association, Mystery Writers of America.

AWARDS, HONORS: Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for Literary Excellence, 1983; Governor's Award for Literature, Olympia, WA, 1983; Trustees Medal, Eastern Washington University (EWU), Cheney, WA, 1984; Excellence in Craft Award, Outdoor Writers Association of America, State College, PA, 1986; Washington State University (WSU) Alumni Achievement Award, Pullman, WA, 1988; WSU Distinguished Achievement Award, Division of Sciences and Arts, 1993; WSU Distinguished Achievement Award, 1994; Founder's Day Award, EWU, 1994; Idaho's Hall of Fame, Pocatello, ID, 1995.

WRITINGS:

HUMOR

A Fine and Pleasant Misery, edited and with an introduction by Jack Samson (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1978.

Kid Camping from AAAAIIII! to Zip (juvenile), Lothrop (New York, NY), 1979.

They Shoot Canoes, Don't They? (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1981.

Never Sniff a Gift Fish (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1983, Crown Publishers (New York, NY), 1989.

The Grasshopper Trap (collected columns; also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1985, Random House (New York, NY), 1988.

The McManus Treasury (boxed set of A Fine and Pleasant Misery, They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?, Never Sniff a Gift Fish, and The Grasshopper Trap), Holt (New York, NY), 1986.

Rubber Legs and White Tail-Hairs (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1987.

Ummer Heiter und So Weiter … Vergnugliches (selected stories by Trude Eggar, Doris Jannausch and Patrick F. McManus), Wilhelm Heyne Verlag (Munchen, Germany), 1989, 2nd edition, 1995.

The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1989.

(With sister, Patricia McManus Gass) Whatchagot Stew, A Memoir of an Idaho Childhood with Recipes, Holt (New York, NY), 1989.

Real Ponies Don't Go Oink! (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1991.

The Good Samaritan Strikes Again (also see below), Holt (New York, NY), 1992.

The McManus Treasury II (boxed set of Rubber Legs and White Tail-Hairs, The Night the Bear Ate Goombaw, Real Ponies Don't Go Oink!, and The Good Samaritan Strikes Again), Holt (New York, NY), 1993.

How I Got This Way, Holt (New York, NY), 1994.

Never Cry "Arp!" and Other Great Adventures, Holt (New York, NY), 1996.

Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing (collected columns; book and audio editions), Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1997.

Funny You Should Ask (a "How to Write Humor" book), Eastern Washington University Press (Cheney, WA), 1998.

(With others) 100 Years of Fishing: The Ultimate Tribute to Our Fishing Tradition, Voyageur Press (Stillwater, MN), 1999.

The Deer on a Bicycle: Excursions into the Writing of Humor, Eastern Washington University Press (Spokane, WA), 2000.

The Bear in the Attic, Holt (New York, NY), 2002.

OTHER

The Blight Way: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

Also author of stage plays, A Fine and Pleasant Misery: The Humor of Patrick F. McManus, 1992; McManus in Love, 1995; McManus, Endlessly Grousing, 1997. A Stage Show Recording was produced of one of McManus's plays, 1994, and The Humor of Patrick F. McManus Video was filmed, 1995, both by Penguin Productions (Spokane, WA), 1994.

Columnist and associate editor of Field and Stream, 1976–81; contributing editor of Spokane, 1979–; columnist and editor-at-large of Outdoor Life, 1981–.

ADAPTATIONS: Several of the author's writings have been adapted as audiobooks.

SIDELIGHTS: Humorist Patrick F. McManus is a frequent contributor to Field and Stream and Outdoor Life; his columns and essays have been collected in such books as The Grasshopper Trap and Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing. In the former work, McManus recounts his misadventures with a wayward outdoorsman, describes the finer points of hunting camp etiquette, and describes the construction of a grasshopper-catching machine. In the latter, the author discusses such varied subjects as his first gas-guzzling car, his ignominious uncle, and the joys of hunting. "With laughs throughout, this is a dandy anthology," remarked a critic in Publishers Weekly.

How I Got This Way contains tales recalling the author's boyhood in rural Idaho. In one episode, McManus and his friend Eddie Muldoon rig a trap to catch wild animals, only to find they've captured Eddie's father and an angry skunk. In another incident, McManus loans his slingshot to Rancid Crabtree, who promptly uses it to destroy a monster-sized pumpkin at the county fair. "There's entertainment aplenty here that even in-doorsy folk should enjoy," noted a Publishers Weekly contributor.

McManus is also the author of the comic novel The Blight Way: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery. When three corpses are discovered at a Blight County, Idaho, ranch, Tully enlists his seventy-five-year-old father, a former sheriff, to help investigate. The pair must sift through a host of colorful suspects, including a family of exconvicts, to solve the crime. "This series kickoff …, heavy on the banter, is one of the most entertaining mystery debuts in years," remarked a critic in Kirkus Reviews.

McManus told CA: "James Thurber once wrote that the writer of short humor pieces sits on the edge of the chair of literature. I suspect the short-humor writer roosts on one of the lower rungs, if he is allowed near the chair at all. Critics do not regard humor writing as serious literary work, which is good. As soon as the humor writer starts thinking of himself as a person of letters, as soon as he perceives his purpose as something other than seeking the ultimate, base, vulgar, gut-busting, psyche-wrenching laugh, he is done for. I have been chided by some reviewers for not possessing a more serious comic purpose. To provoke the uniquely human phenomenon of laughter is, it seems to me, a serious comic purpose, provided, of course, there is such a thing as a serious comic purpose."

McManus added: "For the first ten years or so after college, I wrote mostly travel or science-related articles, but about 1967 I happened to try a humor piece. It was instantly bought by a magazine. I wrote a few more bits of humor, and they, too, sold. Within a couple of years, I was writing humor exclusively, for a wide variety of magazines. I've written humor columns and stories for Outdoor Life and Field & Stream magazines for the past thirty years. The audience for my books and stories includes many children as well as adults, and I now write most of my stories with younger readers in mind."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Gass, Patricia McManus, and Patrick F. McManus, Whatchagot Stew, A Memoir of an Idaho Childhood with Recipes, Holt (New York, NY), 1989.

PERIODICALS

Atlantic, November, 1985, Phoebe-Lou Adams, review of The Grasshopper Trap, p. 143.

Booklist, July, 1994, John Mort, review of How I Got This Way, p. 1891; August, 1996, Chris Sherman, review of Never Cry "Arp!" and Other Great Adventures, p. 1896; September 1, 1997, Jon Kartman, review of Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing, p. 5.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2002, review of The Bear in the Attic, p. 547; February 1, 2006, review of The Blight Way: A Sheriff Bo Tully Mystery, p. 22.

Library Journal, February 1, 2000, John Hiett, reviews of A Fine and Pleasant Misery: The Humor of Patrick F. McManus and McManus in Love (video reviews), p. 130; April 15, 2000, Lisa J. Cihlar, review of The Deer on a Bicycle: Excursions into the Writings of Humor, p. 100; October 11, 1997, Jim G. Burns, review of Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing, p. 61.

Outdoor Life, April, 2006, Todd Smith, "Doing Things The Blight Way," p. 22.

Publishers Weekly, May 3, 1991, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of Real Ponies Don't Go Oink, p. 56; August 10, 1992, review of The Good Samaritan Strikes Again, p. 61; July 4, 1994, review of How I Got This Way, p. 47; August 25, 1997, review of Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing, p. 55.

Time, September 16, 1985, review of The Grasshopper Trap, p. 81.

ONLINE

Patrick F. McManus Home Page, http://www.mcmanusbooks.com/ (November 5, 2006).