The Shattered Piano (1971) is McGuane's second novel, which won the prestigious Richard and Hilda Rosenthal Foundation Award and brought the author fame as a great absurdist. Using masterly language, playing with words and peppering the narrative with jokes of the highest standard, McGuane tells us the story of Nicholas Bolan, a young man completely out of his depth. This novel is a "road" picaresque, because our hero, a normal American freak, sets off to travel around the country in a green Hudson Hornet in pursuit of a young millionaire hungry for "real experience", in the company of a double amputee obsessed with construction throughout the country bat towers that can rid areas of pests almost overnight... All this may remind our reader of Pynchon’s “Lot 49” and will delight all fans of sharp and caustic cult literature.