Objections raised against McGuane's rendering of female characters are less cogent when applied to Ninety-Two in the Shade. A woman can still suffer sexual objectification in this novel — Jeannie Carter, majorette become charge card addict, is referred to as "a simple pink cake with a slot" — but her role is accepted with a certain amount of awareness and choice on her part, and, taken as a fictive maneuver, this flatness of characterization is not nearly as pervasive here as in McGuane's earlier novels. Skelton's lover Miranda is especially noteworthy in this respect. In control of her own sexuality, unwilling to participate in the more egregious of Skelton's follies, and finally somewhat enigmatic in her independence, Miranda is the most fully developed female character in McGuane's first three novels. The coming to grips with that independence, on the part of a bewildered male, later forms the basis...