The Sporting Club marks the debut of a distinctly American writer with a gift for explosive comedy, and the intelligence and craft of a born novelist. The scene is a venerable hunting and fishing club in the Saginaw country of Michigan during the summer of its centennial celebration. Two young men resume a long-standing and destructive competitive friendship. One is something of a country gentleman recently (and uncertainly) converted to the family business. The other is a baroque American aristocrat, a renegade, given to fits of diabolical energy. Their natural and common antagonists are the eminent descendants of the club's founding fathers, who pride themselves on a weekend devotion to the blood sports and hold the fort against the encroachments of the local riffraff. Into their midst comes a redneck purveyor of fish bait and his friends, a crew of motorcycle hillbillies, leading to a Rabelaisian catastrophe.--Adapted from book jacket,