Larry McMurtry, Novelist of the American West, Dies at 84: In “Lonesome Dove,” “The Last Picture Show” and dozens more novels and screenplays, he offered unromantic depictions of a long mythologized region.
The Larry McMurtry I Knew: I caught my first glimpse of the 'Lonesome Dove' author on the streets of Archer City when I was a teenager. It was an encounter that shaped the rest of my life.
Oh, it's the end of an era... 💔
Larry McMurtry first came on my radar in my college Creative Writing class, 1974-ish, when our assignment was to write a poem about an author who had influenced us, in hopes of encouraging someone else to read them. Imagine our surprise when, the following day, we were split into teams of two (our partner being the person in the row directly next to/across from us). Mine was GW, who I thought was cute (and smart) but had barely spoken to, until that day.
Agatha Christie was the subject of my poem, and I wish I still had it, because I thought it was brilliant; I remember the last line, and may one day attempt to recreate it in its entirety. But I digress. GW's was about Larry McMurtry, and I was instantly convinced I *had* to read everything I could get my hands on by this cowboy author he so colorfully described, beginning with Leaving Cheyenne (later turned into a film called Lovin' Molly), about two men (Gid and Johnny) in love with the same woman, told in three segments from each character's point of view. To this day, I can still quote a favorite passage, spoken by a father to his son (one of the men in the love triangle):
"A woman's love is like the morning dew, it's just as apt to settle on a horse turd as it is a rose."
I *did* immerse myself in McMurtry's catalog, which I discovered to be dichotomous, one tangent being cowboy/Western novels (eventually leading to Lonesome Dove) and the other contemporary fiction, starting with All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers, the most famous of which was Terms of Endearment. I loved, and am grateful for, them all... 💞
Two asides:
~ GW and I became "an item" because of the the class assignment, lasting at least a year.
~ I am pretty sure GW *never* read any Agatha Christie... 😃
BOOK: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry [fan that I am, I had absolutely no clue this was the first in a tetralogy! Did you? I was already planning to re-read Lonesome Dove, but it appears I have three more after that waiting for me... 📚]
POEM: The Never-Ending Serial by Red Hawk
When I was a boy, the Varsity Theater
was a mile from our house. Saturdays
we were allowed to walk there, and for a dime
we got a cowboy double-feature and
a long-running serial, which involved
an incredibly stupid, weak and helpless
but beautiful woman, upon whom
unimaginable indignities and cruelties were
enacted by darkly evil men with mustaches.
Week after week we waited for her to die
but at the last impossible moment, tied
to railroad tracks for what reason we could
not possibly imagine, and with a fast freight
bearing down upon her, a heroic white man,
he was always white and so was she,
leaped onto the tracks and
ripped her from the jaws of impending death.
Imagine what the young girls in attendance
were led to believe about their femininity and
how, as long as they lived, they were trained
never to doubt, but to wait for that white man and when
they never showed up, imagine their disillusionment,
the bitter sorrow of their loneliness and despair.
And the young boys in attendance, we who
sat enthralled and believing, imagine
the burden of our lives when we were unable,
fumbling and shaking, to untie those ropes
and were struck down by the thundering train.
QUOTE: If you want any one thing too badly, it’s likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to learn to like all the little everyday things – like a sip of good whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, a glass of buttermilk, or a feisty gentleman like myself.” ~ Gus McCrae
