LIMBONG: Larry McMurtry grew up in Archer City, Texas. And I know I think something of their limitations, having grown up with them. I respect them up to a point, but I'm not crazy about them. LIMBONG: McMurtry told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1995 that while the myth of the cowboy held a lot of power, it was just that - a myth. You like money even less than you like fun, if that's possible.

ROBERT DUVALL: (As Augustus 'Gus' McCrae) What are you talking about? You don't even like money. There wasn't nothing about fun in the deal. Call) We come to this place to make money. It was turned into a miniseries in 1989 starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. NPR's Andrew Limbong has this appreciation.ĪNDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Larry McMurtry's big, Pulitzer Prize-winning book 1985's 'Lonesome Dove' followed retired Texas Rangers at the end of the 1800s. Many of his books were adapted into movies - 'The Last Picture Show,' 'Terms Of Endearment,' 'Texasville.' He also co-adapted the screenplay for 'Brokeback Mountain.' McMurtry died last night of heart failure. He wrote unsentimental depictions of people facing a changing world. Stories about the American West are often over-romantic tales of big skies and cowboys - not Larry McMurtry's. 'If you read only one Western novel in your life, read this one. Legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers – Lonesome Dove is the central, enduring American experience dramatically recreated in a magnificent story of heroism and love of honour, loyalty and betrayal.įrom the author of The Last Picture Show and Texasville, and screenplay writer of Brokeback Mountain, this is the third novel in the McMurtry's Lonesome Dove quartet, following on from Comanche Moon and prequels Streets of Laredo. More than a love story, more than an adventure, Lonesome Dove is an epic: a monumental novel which embraces the spirit of the last defiant wilderness of America. It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived. It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande. From Texas to Montana, it follows cowboys on a grueling cattle drive through the wilderness.

Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning novel is a powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was.

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