Patrick F. McManus

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Patrick F McManus was a humor writer who has written in such magazines as Feild and Stream and Outdoor Life. His columns were collected into a couple dozen books which sold millions of copies. He wrote about the outdoors from late 70's to early 2000's. He passed away peacefully in 2018 at his home in Spokane, Washington. He was 84 and is survived by his wife, Darlene, of 64 years and four daughters. As was said about him in a 1995 interview for Sandpoint Magazine, " he mined his own life for his stories, creating a beloved cast of characters based on people he knew from his childhood, guys like Rancid Crabtree and Crazy Eddie Muldoon, a dog named Strange, and even his sister, Patricia the Troll. " After graduating Sandpoint (Idaho) High School in 1952 he intended to be an artist but worked instead toward a master's degree at Eastern Washington State College which he earned in 1959. He became a published author in 1978 with his "A Fine and Pleasant Misery". His book on writing, “The Deer on a Bicycle: Excursions into the Writing of Humor,” was published in 2000. He also wrote a series of mystery novels set in Blight, Idaho which is a thinly veiled Sandpoint, and features Sheriff Bo Tully. The most recent was “Circles in the Snow,” which was released in 2014. His writing style is said to bring to mind that of such authors as Garrison Keillor, Mark Twain or even Art Buchwald. You don't see many humor writers because editors are afraid of this type and rarely will publish their works. This means they have to be good and it pays to have things published elsewhere. His books can be found online, and many are in e-book form, some are free. Some excerpts from his stories: "There is no greater fan of fly fishing than the worm." "The bike had a couple of little tricks it did with its chain that the Marquis de Sade would have envied." "Once in a seventh grade English class I stumbled into a nest of dangling participles." "The know-it-all is now listed as a threatened species. I myself have threatened a large number of them, and, on occasion, have even endangered a few."