Larry McMurtry passed on last week into the annals of great Texas writers, among whom he kept dubious company. His early years were devoted to de-bunking some of the grand old men of Texas letters, such as Dobie, Webb, and Bedichek, (In a Narrow Grave, one of his best non-fiction books) until, ironically he became one himself—though he probably wouldn’t claim the title! In fact, he has steadfastly maintained that his real passion is for books themselves, that is, collecting them, not writing them.
He was born and raised in the small northwest Texas town of Archer City, near Wichita Falls, a place unlikely to produce great authors, but one never knows about that! What one does know about McMurtry is that he had a love/hate relationship with his hometown that kept him leaving and going back most of his life. His early novel The Last Picture Show, one of his most well-known, largely because of the highly successful film, is a clear case of his ambivalent feelings.
That he had an American wanderlust is hardly in doubt, either—a wanderlust that kept him moving (he loved to drive long stretches of highway alone) from West Coast (Hollywood, where he wrote a number of movie scripts, including the Academy Award winning Brokeback Mountain), to East Coast (Washington, D.C., specifically Georgetown, where he established Booked Up, his first bookstore). But eventually he returned to Archer City, buying the Country Club and filling it with his personal collection of books, then ultimately adding four vacant stores downtown, extending his passion for books right into the streets of Archer City, where he had read paperback novels as a kid.
At the same time, he kept a home near Tucson, Arizona, where he doted on the Southwestern esthetic, inviting many friends, both celebrities and writers, to visit.
Among those who came to stay was a young writer, Diana Ossana, who nursed him back to health after a major heart attack, and surprisingly Norma Faye Kesey, a lifetime friend and widow of Ken Kesey, whom he married late in life.
McMurtry’s collected works are substantial, approximately sixty in number, falling largely within the framework of Modern America and the Old West, but there are some very interesting essays and autobiographical things as well. Almost everyone’s favorite seems to be Lonesome Dove, an early novel that won him a Pulitzer, followed by a later sequel and two prequels. The author claimed not to prefer his Westerns, but they brought him fame and fortune, though I suspect that he didn’t care much for either. A modest and retiring man, he never totally left his roots—an authentic Texan, and despite a few really awful books, the State of Texas should be proud of him.
