Lonesome Dove
1985
- fiction
- western cattle drives
- cowboys
- man-woman relationships
- western fiction
- historical fiction
- historical - general
- fiction / general
- fiction - historical
- texas rangers
The story
Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry, the author of Terms of Endearment, is his long-awaited masterpiece, the major noel at last of the American West as it really was. A love story, an adventure, an American epic, Lonesome Dove embraces all the West--legend and fact, heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers--in a novel that recreates the Central American experience, the most enduring of our national myths. Set in the late nineteenth century. Lonesome Dove is the story of a cattle drive from Texas to Montana -- and much more. It is a drive that represents for everybody involved not only a Darin, even a foolhardy, adventure, but a part of the American Dream--the attempt to carve out of the last remaining wilderness a new life. Augustus McCrae and W. F. Call are former Texas Rangers, partners and friends who have shared hardship and danger together without ever quite understanding (or wanting to understand) each other's deepest emotions. Gus is the romantic, a reluctant rancher who has a way with women and the sense to leave well enough alone. Call is a driven, demanding man, a natural authority figure with no patience for weakness, and not many of his own. He is obsessed with the dream of creating his own empire, and with the need to conceal a secret sorrow of his own. The two men could hardly be more different, but both are tough, redoubtable fighters who have learned to count on each other, if nothing else. Call's dream not only drags Gus along in its wake, but draws in a vast cast of characters: -Lorena, the whore with the proverbial heart of gold, whom Gus (and almost everyone else) loves, and who. Survives one of the most terrifying experiences any woman could have... -Elmira, the restless, reluctant wife of a small-time Arkansas sheriff, who runs away from the security of marriage to become part of the great Western adventure... --Blue Duck, the sinister Indian renegade, one of the most frightening villains in American fiction, who
What it’s like
Long, unhurried stretches of sun-bleached prairie, dust hanging gold over herds, and the slow glow of campfires under enormous skies give this book the feel of a wide, weathered panorama. McMurtry's prose is plain-spoken and dry, full of wry asides and vernacular talk that sounds like men who have been riding together too long, and it moves between quiet domestic scenes and sudden spikes of violence. The vibe is nostalgic and melancholy with a streak of rough humour, the kind of book that suits a long winter read, a slow summer week on the porch, or a dusty road trip. Pacing is leisurely and episodic, building toward a grief-soaked, expansive ending. The emotional register is elegiac: a pair of aging, gruff friends who never say what they feel, and a wide cast of drifters, whores, widows and runaways searching for a place to belong. Violence is frequent and sometimes brutal, including attacks, killings and a graphic, frightening assault, while sex is present but mostly off-page and frank rather than explicit. It is for readers who want a sprawling, character-driven western with grit, tenderness and a long emotional payoff.
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