So, you have to understand that Lonesome Dove has been in the background of my life for a long time. Not the story, exactly, just the existence of the book. They filmed the Return to Lonesome Dove miniseries very close from my grandfather’s ranch, on what was the remains of my great-uncle’s ranch before it was turned into 20 acre housing lots. (If there is more apt metaphor for Lonesome Dove, I don’t what it would be). So the existence of the novel has been kind of hanging around my life since 1993. And I think that a young, foolish, me wrote the story off as yet another spaghetti western kind of thing and so despite enjoying the western genre, I never actually picked the book up. In fact, I wasn’t even aware that it had won the Pulitzer until I started reading it. Anyway, one of my longtime friends posted about how this was one of her favorite books, and how she named one of her sons after Gus. It was this post that finally made me decide to pick it up and read it. I mean, I like westerns right? I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this book. I have been meandering my way, slowly, through this book for almost two months now. I wanted to take my time to savor and really enjoy the world and the characters. In fact, I almost thought about further delaying finishing it, because I was just sad to see it end. If you haven’t read this book, you really should do so. It’s this beautiful, sparse, harsh, dive into the the American West and the people who inhabited it.
The plot of the book is driven by the characters that travel across its pages; the events loosely tied to a cattle drive from southern Texas to northern Montana in the late 1870s. It’s really the characters that drive the novel though, and you feel the life and deaths of each character breathe across the pages. It’s hard to talk much about what happens without spoiling the events, because how each event shapes the characters is important. I want so desperately to talk about the characters, but also this is a novel to experience. The deaths should come with the gut punches that they are, so that we mourn with the characters.
While there aren’t many women in the book, I do think McMurtry does right by them. And despite not having a lot of women, I think it’s a fairly feminist work. The rage that Clara spills at the end of the book, to two different men, is every woman asking the men around her to stop wallowing in toxic masculinity and let themselves feel things.
One brief warning. One of the women in the book, Lorena, is captured, brutally raped, and beaten. It’s rough, but I think the book handles it well. However, should that kind of thing trigger you, you should be aware that it happens so that you can prepare for it.
The one think I don’t feel really prepared to judge is how well the book handles its characters of color. On the one hand, I appreciate that McMurtry acknowledges that there were more than just white men who civilized the west. Joshua Deets, my second favorite character (after Clara) is a black man. There are a few Mexican characters sprinkled here and there. The Native Americans are both a looming threat, and the sad, angry remnants of a dying people. I think the various races are all handled respectfully, but I also acknowledge my own privilege and thus I’m open to other interpretations of the characterizations. The book doesn’t address the problem of the western expansion directly, and I can see how some might find that troublesome. It didn’t bother me because you could see the problems that it created reflected in every character.
You should absolutely read this novel. Especially if you’re a fan of American literature. It’s beautiful, and is an example of what I love about westerns. The way that westerns delve into bleak harshness of life, tempered by the beauty of the landscape and the powerful will of the human spirit. However, after reading this book, I’m kind of afraid to approach the rest of McMurtry’s works. How can they compare to this one? I’m not really sure that I want to return to these characters, because I want to imagine a happy ending for the ones who survived this book and not the tragic deaths that I’m sure McMurtry wrote for them, but on the other hand I do want to spend more time with them.
So what you’re saying is I should stop resisting this book for my “reading a Western” slot on the Read Harder Challenge. It’s just, everyone is reading this, and it really doesn’t sound all that appealing to me.
It really is wonderful. I think you just might get swept up once you give it a try.
I think you should give it a shot. It really was so good, probably the best western I’ve ever read.
I have something else picked out for Western for Read Harder (a) Murder on the Red River by Marcie Rendon) but I might do this one as well for classic of a genre, you’ve made me interested even though I have taken in exactly 0 in the way of Lonesome Dove anything.
I do not like Westerns, but this is a damn good book full of some of my most favorite literary characters of all time.
It’s pretty easy to see why this won the Pulitzer. Sometimes when I read a book that has won that prize I just kind of tilt my head and go “really? was there nothing better this year?” But this one totally deserves it. The characters are amazing.
So in terms of the question of Larry McMurtry, I have read about 10 of his novels including Lonesome Dove. I loved Lonesome Dove and read it in like two days (it was over Memorial Day weekend) and started chasing that dragon, trying to find more just like it. And I am just not sure it’s out there. The other books in that series…I read Dead Man’s Walk, and while I liked it, it’s not as epic or even close. I am literally about to start Comanche Moon this week, so I will review that soon, and eventually will read Streets of Laredo. As for his other books, he doesn’t often write about the Old West, and I read the first two “Berrybender” books and liked them, but they’re almost farcical in their tone and form.
His “contemporary” books though I have loved. I recently read and reviewed the Thalia books (his first three novels) and they are very good in their own way, and I am interested in a few more of his. I am on a kick for this year on him (so I plan on reading That Evening Star, Texasville, Moving On, the last two Berrybender novels, Terms of Endearment, and the two remaining Lonesome Dove novels, so who knows).
I never did find that epic Western I was looking for otherwise. I have enjoyed Cormac McCarthy’s books, The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt, Warlock by Oakley Hall, and a few others….but those are all musings on the form and not entirely brilliant executions on the form.
Have you read Doc by Mary Doris Russell? I really loved it and though it’s not exactly like Lonesome Dove, it did hit some of the same notes for me.