Lonesome Dove

McMurtry’s 1985 novel follows two former Texas Rangers as they drive a herd of cattle from Texas to Montana. This is an epic in every sense as McMurtry effortlessly shifts from one character’s point of view to another. All are as captivating and authentic as the landscape and world of the old West.

The story itself is actually quite unconventional but it is impossible not to be caught up in these dramatic lives and this most dramatic of worlds. 

I chose this for characters and setting. Larry McMurtry was one of the greatest American writers and a chronicler of life in Texas, and he won the Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove, the story of two aging Texas Rangers on a final adventure together.

McMurtry immerses the reader in his world, but more importantly he immerses his characters in that world. The relationships are amazing: between characters who face deeply personal and tragic life-or-death decisions, but also between characters and the novel’s savage, lethal world.

McMurtry’s stories are character-driven slices of life, but authors of plot-driven books can learn… show more.

This Pulitzer Prize winner was one of the first Western epics I ever read, and I was gripped from the first paragraph.

There is a reason this won the world’s top literary prize, and Larry McMurtry uses his considerable skill and makes it look easy. 

An epic telling of a cattle drive, and the women and men to make the trek, the narrative is both sprawling in its scope, and intimate in its understanding of its characters. Nothing here is overwrought or predictable, no cardboard-cut-out characters or cheesy dialogue.

Every scene feels like it is unfolding before your eyes, the… show more.

Lonesome Dove won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and it is a well-deserved honor. In a genre where most authors pass off gamblers, outlaws, lawmen, gunfighters, and other characters as “cowboys” even though there is seldom a cow in sight, McMurtry’s characters in Lonesome Dove are the real thing. He captures the essence of the historic cattle-drive era in powerful prose, and Gus McRae and Woodrow Call are timeless characters who ride an unforgettable trail. 

What can you say about this fabulous story that hasn’t been said? You can’t beat cattle drives, Texas Rangers, strong women, and a wagon-load of action and adventure. I only wish I could read it for the first time again! The miniseries was great, and introduced so many of us to Larry McMurtry’s enduring story, but the book has nuances and scenes that can’t be duplicated on screen. A must-read!

I’ll tell you a secret… I wasn’t sure if I was going to recommend this book when I first started it. I only recently read it, and it took me a looooong time to get into the story. The writing didn’t draw me in, to begin with, but eventually, it grabbed me and I decided this novel belonged on my list. The characters are really well-rounded and it was Clara Allen who stood out for me. If I wanted to mention the strong women of the Wild West, I could not leave her out. She is clever, brave, and down-to-earth.… show more.

I saved perhaps the best for last. This is an epic story, so grand in scale that it made the list of top 50 books ever written and won a Pulitzer Prize. It’s also one of fewer than five books that almost made me cry. And that’s saying something. The book tells the story of two Texas Rangers, who are just a touch beyond their prime. But not by much. They’ve got more than enough experience to handle anything that comes their way, except for aging and boredom. It’s these two things that they can’t whip, but damn do they… show more.

Westerns are often about a lone hero or antihero who rides into town and saves the day before riding off into the sunset. Lonesome Dove shows that a traditional western can be about relationships. Loads of variations are possible when the story is about characters tied together fighting off the bad guys. This is especially true for a multi-book saga. The West was wild, and security often depended on surrounding yourself with others you knew you could trust in a fight. 

This book is the first of a four-part series written by Larry McMurtry. Lonesome Dove inspired a fabulous television mini-series starring Robert Duval, Tommy Lee Jones, and Danny Glover. 

Lonesome Dove is about two former Texas Rangers who leave their sunbaked speck of a town on the Texas-Mexico border to make a 1,500-mile cattle drive to Montana. The story is as big as the western landscape McMurtry describes, with storms and stampedes and rivers full of water moccasins, but it’s the characters that draw me in. I hold a particular place in my heart for old Pea Eye, who “never… show more.

Lonesome Dove is ostensibly about an 1870s cattle drive from Texas to Montana. As premises go, that one isn’t exactly a huge draw for a lot of people I know. But Larry McMurtry does an amazing job at winning readers over with his writing, story, and characters. Once the actual cattle drive begins (and to be honest, you need to stick with this one a bit to get to that point), the whole book really takes off. This one really set the mold for me, in terms of books that might surprise you if you give them a chance.