Cyra mcfadden biography of michael

Rain or Shine

By Cyra McFadden

Knopf, 178 pages, $16.95

Several years ago Cyra McFadden sent us rollicking with a spoof of the lifestyle and cliches of the upwardly mobile Californians of Marin County.

She captured in the effortless manner of Donald Ogden Stewart the vapid opinions of those on the make in the never-never land of the wealthy San Francisco suburbanite.

After such a smashing start, McFadden dropped out of the literary world she had so well penetrated.

Now, thank goodness, McFadden is back, not with such an obvious parody as ”The Serial” but with a wry and finely wrought account of her father, Cy Taillon, the king of rodeo announcing.

To most of us, rodeo announcers would not seem to be worth biographical attention.

Cy Taillon, however, was different. He was the best of his craft, a man legendary in a sport, if you want to call it that, that engrosses thousands in small-town America, especially in the West.

A rodeo pits primarily young men (and sometim