Larry McMurtry has died | Hacker News Reader

Larry McMurtry has died

washingtonpost.com

64 pointssamclemens28 comments

Never heard of "Lonesome Dove", or that he was the author behind the movie Brokeback Mountain.

I grew up in Italy, lived abroad for a few years in my adult life (northern Europe and Singapore), and spent 2012 to 2020 in San Francisco (I'm now back to Italy).

Despite 8+ years of living in the US, I occasionally stumble on articles like this, and am very happy to discover yet another piece of American culture that I completely missed, mostly because I didn't grow up there nor attended school there.

It's easy for Europeans to dismiss the US as a young Country with little history; but the truth is, the US has had a rather interesting history in the past several decades, and the intensity and variety of it makes it possibly deeper than what happened in a relatively sleepy Europe.

If you have any interest whatsoever in Westerns as a genre you should read Lonesome Dove. It's about 850 pages but I'd be surprised if it took you more than a week to read. For the longest time I had no interest in reading it because, of all the things, the title put me off (I thought it would be a romance of some sort).

His uncles were cowboys toward the end of the cowboy days, and when they were young, they'd heard stories from the old-timers about how things used to be. Those uncles told Larry those stories and he eventually incorporated that knowledge into his westerns, and it really shows. One thing I find fascinating about Lonesome Dove is that, as the article says, he intended it to deconstruct some of the myths of the West and show what a hard life it was, but everyone who reads it falls in love with the world and the characters.

I’ll also recommend the work of his son, James McMurtry. He’s an outstanding songwriter.

See for example:

Choctaw Bingo: https://youtu.be/Nggqe-L9ZQ8

Copper Canteen: https://youtu.be/IM_BjzDCDXs

Painting by Numbers: https://youtu.be/kca5E3xk8II

Lights of Cheyenne: https://youtu.be/TbSmMeJN8tc

Cutter: https://youtu.be/1jGEedvJMDU

Charlemagne’s Home Town: https://youtu.be/AkCNldGIbio

Agreed, I’ve seen James live a few times and he is a great songwriter.

Best of his generation, in my opinion. Ruby and Carlos should be at the top of your list, but there are so many to choose from.

Have you watched his recent work? Post-pandemic? He was always acerbic but now he spits out every syllable like he has a personal grudge against it. It's getting to the point where I'm actually worried about him.

Wow, I feel dense. I didn't know James McMurtry was related to Larry McMurtry. Ruby and Carlos rules. For some odd reason I woke up with it stuck in my head a couple weeks ago, and it stayed stuck for a few days. Hey, there it is again!

I'm partial to:

You Got To Me https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QNBA5wAyI7c

Lobo Town https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng_D8b6qfDM

Restless https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=iBTkHd8DMo0

No More Buffalo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=54u0OlJQB7g

Lonesome Dove is the best book you’ll ever read.

If you feel uninterested in reading a western novel, consider that it’s primarily a character drama, and would be just as good if the setting were space pirates or whatever else.

I spent 5 years living near where Mr. McMurtry lived and wrote about - flat and boring as can be, but holy moley did his writing ever romanticize that area’s history effectively.

The best book you’ll ever read? That’s a bit of a stretch but everyone is allowed their opinion.

I feel it’s long-winded and, for the most part, incredibly slow moving. The novel would have better been a 180 page western romance novel series than a 900 page behemoth.

The way McMurtry articulates this "turnabout" is great (you can find it on his wikipedia page). I get his point—the characters suffer immensely, and you would hope the reader could recognize that it wouldn't be the best world to live in—and yet he portrays the characters with such heart that I don't know why it would be surprising that people fall in love with them. I won't post any spoilers, but there's a moment where one of the characters is leaving the group, and he says something to the effect of, "Most of the cowboys were rude and incompetent, but they were still his compañeros." Those family dynamics, the mixture of love and annoyance we feel with the people around us when we're part of a tribe, is such a hard thing to portray, and McMurtry does it beautifully. So not only do you have these incredibly complex characters, but circumstances bring them together as a family (something I think is often deeply missing in the modern world, and people pine for).

Try somewhat off-beat American novels:

1. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurty

2. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers

3. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

They are great novels, and sadly, are less known than they should be. If you are into movies, there are great ones like "Paris, Texas" by the German director Wim Wenders, or "A River Runs Through It" by Robert Redford.

I would add:

0. 'McTeague' by Frank Norris.

1. All The Kings Men, Robert Penn Warren.

2. Most novels by Sinclair Lewis.

3. Novels of John O Hara

4. Sister Carrie, Theodore Dresier.

5. Little Big Man by Thomas Berger.

6. Last of the Mohicans by Fenimore Cooper.

*James* Fenimore Cooper

As we are kind of in Ken Kesey country here, I would add "Sometimes A Great Notion", which I think is his best novel - better than "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest".

The book "A River Runs Through It", which is three short stories, one of which is also called "A River Runs Through It" is very good too. I read it once over 10 years ago and I still think about it from time to time.

I really liked the book as well, and even the film! The author worked with the forestry service and it certainly shows in his understanding and deep love for the outdoors; making nature an integral part of the human psyche. The locale of Idaho (similar to Montana and Wyoming) is some of the shrinking open space left in the lower 48. I'm farther north in the Eastern Rockies and it's a very similar environment.

I also like Louis L'Amour, specifically his non-western short story collections. It's junk food, but perfect for interspersing with harder reads.

My uncle loves Louis L'Amour, I haven't gotten around to anything by him yet but will have to someday soon.

Dunces is Michael Lewis’s (Big Short, etc)favorite book. Great book.

"Brokeback Mountain" is based on a short story/novella by Annie Proulx:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brokeback_Mountain_(short_stor...

McMurtry adapted it for the screen, however.

Incredible miniseries, starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. It advanced television and not with special effects or anything technical. Commenting on what it means to be a man, a woman, an American, human, and more.

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lonesome_Dove_(miniseries):

Lonesome Dove is an American epic Western adventure television miniseries directed by Simon Wincer. It is a four-part adaptation of the 1985 novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry and is the first installment in the Lonesome Dove series. The novel was based upon a screenplay by Peter Bogdanovich and McMurtry, intended to star John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda, but the film was never made after John Ford advised Wayne against it. The eventual television miniseries stars Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. The series was originally broadcast by CBS from February 5 to 8, 1989, drawing a huge viewing audience, earning numerous awards, and reviving both the television western and the miniseries.

An estimated 26 million homes tuned in to watch Lonesome Dove, unusually high numbers for a Western at that time. The western genre was considered dead by most people, as was the miniseries. By the show's end, it had earned huge ratings and virtually revamped the entire 1989–1990 television season. A favorite with audiences, as well as critics, Lonesome Dove garnered many honors and awards. At the 1989 Emmy Awards, the miniseries had 18 nominations and seven wins, including one for director Simon Wincer. Lonesome Dove also won two Golden Globes, for Best Miniseries and Best Actor in a Miniseries (Robert Duvall).

Just watched "Hud" again recently. "The Last Picture Show" is another beautiful film based on McMurtry's sober novels. I recommend both.

"Lonesome Dove" is one of my favorite books of all time. Like others, I put it off for a long time, but I recently read it last year and completely fell in love (contrary to McMurtry's aims!). If you have any interest in westerns whatsoever, it's a literary masterpiece.

My grandfather was born in Nocona, TX. He was food-insecure growing up, a survivor of the Dust Bowl, paratrooper in WWII and Korea, and avid watcher of Western TV series like Gunsmoke and Bonanza.

My grandmother was born in Wilson, OK. I guess she watched the cowboy series because that's what he watched. She was a quiet lady until her later years.

I think living in Texas, they didn't romanticize the old West too much but did appreciate it. Some of my remaining relatives have a farm with about 30 longhorn cattle.

What a loss to literature but McMurtry's legacy lives on.

If anyone is looking for novels of his try out the Thalia trilogy Larry wrote. It bleeds Texan vibes in a very human, realistic fashion. And if you're into film there's a movie based on the last book The Last Picture Show in which McMurtry was also involved with the screen play. They filmed it in Archer City, the town he grew up in and heavily inspired the novel.

R.I.P. Larry!

If you are ever passing through that area, McMurtry had a book store in Archer City called Booked Up. It's a fun little place.

I read about that and will definitely plan on visiting. Thanks!

Yeats wrote it for his tombstone, McMurtry named a novel after it, and it's the perfect epitaph for him as well:

Cast a cold eye On life, on death. Horseman, pass by!

It is sad to see Larry McMurtry has passed on. He was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford 1960-1961 along with my friend, Peter Beagle.

My personal favorite of Larry's books is "Leaving Cheyenne", which plays out three intertwined lives in West Texas during the brief interlude we call the "wild West". While "Lonesome Dove"is an epic novel, "Leaving Cheyenne" is an intense record of love and commitment set against the evolving West Texas backdrop. It is among the few novels I have read more than once.

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