Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove

Would’ve liked a few less deaths, but that’s the life of a cowboy, baby!!

elissa

My first forray into fiction that WASNT sci-fi or fantasy in a long time and I absolutely loved this. It's a long meandering tale, but that's part of what makes it great.

One some fun facts: the story is inspired by the real life cattle driver Charles Goodnight. Goodnight makes an appearance in the book and converses with the character represented by him. Knowing this makes that scene pretty comical. Next, (less of a fact, more of my opinion) the recent TV series 1883 (part of the Yellowstone-iverse) clearly draws from Lonsome Dove, real life Goodnight, or both. And the creator of the series, Taylor Sheridan, makes an appearance as Goodnight in that show. 

Craig Jellick

My first forray into fiction that WASNT sci-fi or fantasy in a long time and I absolutely loved this. It's a long meandering tale, but that's part of what makes it great.

One some fun facts: the story is inspired by the real life cattle driver Charles Goodnight. Goodnight makes an appearance in the book and converses with the character represented by him. Knowing this makes that scene pretty comical. Next, (less of a fact, more of my opinion) the recent TV series 1883 (part of the Yellowstone-iverse) clearly draws from Lonsome Dove, real life Goodnight, or both. And the creator of the series, Taylor Sheridan, makes an appearance as Goodnight in that show. 

Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read. A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize–winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always dramatic, Lonesome Dove is a book to make us laugh, weep, dream, and remember.

A Novel

Ed Kay

This is a real 5* book. Makes me feel like I have to go back through all of my Goodreads reviews and knock everything else down a star just to make things fair! It's an epic tale told in incredible style and I highly recommend it. My only complaints would be about certain annoying characters, but that's just another facet of the genius of this book: because the characters are so well drawn they leap off the page and they can't help but be who they are and do what they do. July's moping - while utterly aggravating - is just a reflection of who he is, his inability to communicate, his fear of women. I was also pretty distraught at the death of (view spoiler)[little Janey (hide spoiler)] who I'd hoped would be around for a long time. She was a shining light for the 30 pages she got. McMurtry - like the wild west itself - does not play favourites. Good people die horrible deaths, while evil ones get to live. That's just the way it is. Gus understands that, I wish I had even a small amount of this guy's tolerance and stoicism. What a legend. This book is going to stay with me for a long time.

Lonesome Dove, Book 3 (chronologically)

Fraser Simons

I don’t I have anything unique to say about this. It lived up to the hype, and basically every review I’ve seen from people I follow is 5 stars, so I had high expectations. I also don’t particularly drift toward this era for historical fiction either. 

But as much as it’s a pretty granular accounting of what life was like for cowboys, it’s also a thorough character study and rumination on gender dynamics and the inability to comprehend the full context of any single life.

After all, we follow Gus and the band from before they had the notion to drive cattle from Texas to Montana (a staggering feet, truly), all the way through and beyond that endeavour. And in all that time, to be honest, I had been so sure that the painting I had been looking at, for that is how well drawn the characters are in this book, that I thought I had the measure of every single one of them. 

But of course as soon as we hear memories of Gus’s past—memories he recounts a few times at the fire with the boys—lived by others who shared them being told, it becomes clear that all people, especially Gus, are so multifaceted we fail to see certain moments as they really are. And when such things are fundamental to a person, that is truly the building blocks or the drive and the hopes of a person, and they involve someone else, well it’s almost terrifying how much can be internalized without ever getting the “full picture.”

Anyway, this book made me think about things like that. And the book starts you off with a notion and never really stops giving you something to chew on. That is exactly what I’m looking for from fiction. This is so rich you sink right into it. What’s more is the ending, which so many stories struggle with, is perfect, I think. Can’t say that of very many books at all.

Elizabeth Moore

Ten months after I met this book, and twelve years after first being told I absolutely had to read it, I have finally come to the end of Lonesome Dove. My "reading courtship" with Lonesome Dove start to finish being the longest one I've had with any book, I can't help but find it funny that this nearly year-long endeavor lined right up with the most sweeping epic I have ever read.

Every review you read will say the same, but the characters are what define this novel, which seems impossible in theory given how much material McMurtry had to work with in creating the striking worlds through which these characters travelled. If the characters were completely absent from the novel, Lonesome Dove would still be revered for how exquisitely and often rawly McMurtry depicted the sights of early Western America and the feelings they conjured, but he didn't stop there and instead introduces more characters that more readers care about and remember than any other book I am aware of.

Augustus McCrae and Captain Call are of course larger than life and empirically memorable, but I found myself drawn most to Josh Deets. I thought what was so interesting about Deets was that his dependability and kindness, and I might almost even say innocence, stayed a constant throughout his time in the book. While other characters were wildly changing for the better or the worse all around him, and while Hat Creek Outfit's tensions and moods changed constantly with their rapidly fluctuating surroundings, Deets was always a voice of reason and a kind presence. No one else kept that from start to finish, I don't think even McCrae, who stayed kind always but wasn't always straight with reason. Deet's character reminded me very much of the moon with which he was always so entranced – I always felt myself calmed to know that I could count on him to guide the outfit and shine a light on their travels. I missed him the most at the turn of the last page.

I also couldn't get over how honestly all of these characters were portrayed; for all of Deet's steadiness he was an irregularity in a crew full of good people suffering from all of the problems that afflict all us daily as humans. Larry McMurtry painted deeply flawed humans who were all in their own ways trying to make their lives right; some quests are as easy simple and linear as leaving a whoring life behind and trying to become a "respectable lady", some as nebulous as the desire to confront a mistake that has been buried so long that it's become truly impossible to dig to the root and right it. Blue Duck seemed to me the only case of pure evil (even the Shuggs band of brothers has some shades of remorse lining their group identity) and Blue Duck was written in a way that made him seem non-human – as if he weren't even a character but rather a dark force playing against the people in this story.

Although not every character reaches total redemption and forgiveness for their sins and failures, each one tries. That is the part of this book that meant the most to me and will stay with me the longest.

Recommend this book 100 times over to anyone who loves stories, people, and a good old fashioned adventure.

Melody Izard

Why this great big ol' book has been on my reading list for a mighty long time, but I just didn't want to take the time to read it. Then when audible started relentlessly targeting me as their next number one customer, I noticed there was an audio book option. Man! I'd listen to it again! It definitely earns it's reputation as an exceptional novel. I'm tempted to read some of the others in the series, just because I loved these characters so much. But the ratings scare me off.

It is an odd little genre of funny tragedy. One minute you are guffawing at the antics of a well-loved character, seemingly essential to the story, and the next minute he is dead.

Spoiler: There ain't nobody that is not disposable.

Agata 

"Bè, accidenti", disse Call.

Forse uno dei libri più belli della mia vita. 
Ho riso con Gus, mi sono incazzata insieme a Call. Ho pianto con Newt. Mi sono innamorata come se avessi davanti Clara. 

Questo è il crepuscolo della frontiera del West, uno dei grandi romanzi americani che non possono mancare alla tua libreria. Un lungo viaggio verso il Montana, vecchi Texas ranger alla ricerca di una nuova avventura. Amici di sempre e nuove conoscenze: un mondo piccolo dove il cerchio si chiude sempre e l'attenzione ai dettagli è sorprendente.

Qualcuno lo ha paragonato al Signore degli Anelli in chiave western: posso dire di essere sostanzialmente d'accordo. La narrazione è fluida e scorrevole.

Vorrei inserire i frammenti più belli in questa recensione, per darvi un assaggio, ma mi sono resa conto di aver sottolineato 1/3 del libro.

Tutto questo per dire che non sono brava a fare le recensioni estasiate. E se è vero che questo è ancora un Paese libero, comunque dovete leggerlo. Vi farà bene.

So this is a lot of book and I don't want to write a novel explaining why I really loved it.

The main thing that hooked me was the way he writes his characters. They feel real. I feel like I really traveled with Gus and Call throughout their past and up to the start of the novel. Laurie feels like someone I sat down and had a drink with as she confessed her life. Elmira, phew boy Elmira. And I cried. I really got affected when a death happened and you can imagine a lot of death can happen out on those trails. It is really crazy how attached I became to some of the story outcomes.

My biggest complaint was just the time it took for the ending. I was ready to wrap it up but I don't think the author felt the same. I guess I don't really blame him though, a goodbye to these characters feels like saying goodbye to a real person.

Jeni Enjaian

I honestly don't understand the appeal and I certainly don't understand how this book could have possibly won a Pulitzer price.

There's no overarching narrative arc. The story wanders from one point to another just like the characters with no apparent reason other than a whim journey from Texas to Montana. 

I did not connect with any of the characters. I did not feel in any way compelled to finish the book apart from the desire to cross it off my list.

It's 800+ pages of meandering, aimless prose that I do not recommend at all.

Janet Doré

Anyone who can get me to love a western has some talent! Although I have not been able to get through any other McMurtry books, this one was incredible.

Martin Heuer

Ralston Hough

Delaney Vorwick

Nathan Davis

La “Compañía ganadera de Hat Creek” es un pequeño rancho situado en Lonesome Dove, un pueblo texano cerca de la frontera con México. Los dos rangers retirados que lo regentan, Augustus “Gus” McCrae y el capitán Woodrow F. Call, tienen visiones antagónicas del mundo –hedonista y soñador el primero y práctico y tenaz el otro– por lo que son frecuentes los enfrentamientos verbales entre ellos, no exentos de humor y un poso filosófico. La vida transcurre plácida y monótona en un Lonesome Dove achicharrado por el sol, en donde solo ha llovido un par de veces en el último año. Un día llega al rancho Jake Spoon, un viejo conocido de Gus y Call, y les propone una idea disparatada: conducir un gran rebaño de ganado desde Texas a Montana y establecer allí un rancho, algo que nunca se había hecho antes. Aunque apenas disponen de ganado ni vaqueros aptos para recorrer una distancia semejante, el capitán Call decide emprender tan azarosa odisea.

Miguel Angel Palmer Salva

Milo Mordaunt

Gabe Cortez

From the author of The Last Picture Show and Texasville – here is Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece. A powerful, triumphant portrayal of the American West as it really was. It begins in the office of The Hat Creek Cattle Company of the Rio Grande. It ends as a journey into the heart of every adventurer who ever lived . . . 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. 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. This is the third novel in the Lonesome Dove quartet, following on from Comanche Moon and prequels Streets of Laredo.

Michael Southey

Mark Florczyk

Robbie Bell

Rochelle Butcher

Ryan Greene

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, whose steely capacity for cruelty affects the lives of everyone in the book...
-Newt, the young cowboy for whom the long and dangerous journey from Texas to Montana is in fact a search for his own identity...
-Jake, the dashing, womanising ex-ranger, a comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, whose weakness leads him to an unexpected fate...
-July Johnson, husband of Elmira, whose love for her draws him out of his secure life into a kind of hero...

Lonesome Dove seeps from the Rio Grande (where Gus and Call acquire the cattle for their long drive by raiding the Mexicans) to the Montana highlands (where they find themselves besieged by the last, defiant remnants of an older West).

It is an epic of love, heroism, loyalty, honour, and betrayal--faultlessly written, unfailingly dramatic. Lonesome Dove is the novel about the West that American literature--and the American reader--has long been waiting for.
--jacket

Lonesome Dove

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