Comanche Moon [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Larry McMurtry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1998

General FictionLarge Print Edition*A New York Times Bestseller*A Book-of-the-Month Club Main Selection*A History Book Club SelectionCompletely able to stand on its own, Comanche Moon completes Larry McMurtrys four-volume epic of the American West that began with Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove. Here we follow McCrae, Call and their comrades in their bitter struggle to protect an advancing Western frontier against the defiant Comanches in an adventure full of heroism, tragedy, courage, honor, and betrayal.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In a book that serves as a both a sequel to Dead Man's Walk and a prequel to the beloved Lonesome Dove, McMurtry fills in the missing chapters in the Call and McCrae saga. It is a fantastic read, in many ways the best and gutsiest of the series. We join the Texas Rangers in their waning Indian-fighting years. The Comanches, after one last desperate raid led by the fearsome-but-aging Buffalo Hump, are almost defeated, though Buffalo Hump's son, Blue Duck, still terrorizes the relentless flow of settlers and lawmen. As Augustus and Woodrow follow one-eyed, tobacco-spitting Captain Inish Scull deep into a murderous madman's den in Mexico, their thoughts turn toward the end of their careers and the women they love in remarkably different ways back in Austin. What's amazing about McMurtry's West is that he sees beyond the romance. Neither his Indians, his cowboys, his gunslingers, nor his women act the way they did in either Zane Grey novels or John Wayne movies. Incredible beauty and lightning-quick violence are the bookends of his West, but it is the in-between moments of suffering and boredom where McMurtry shines. The suffering is poignant and heart-rending; the boredom tempered with doses of Augustus McCrae's sharp humor. Don't be surprised if you find yourself crying and laughing on the same page. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

If you've ever wondered what happened between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove, here's your chance to find out.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 920 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (April 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786213914
• ISBN-13: 978-0786213917
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (149 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,627,123 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry McMurtry is the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove. His other works include two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, including the coauthorship of Brokeback Mountain, for which he received an Academy Award. His most recent novel, When the Light Goes, is available from Simon & Schuster. He lives in Archer City, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A worthy prequel to the classic Lonesome Dove, November 2, 1997

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Comanche Moon (Hardcover)

"Comanche Moon" is described as the final volume of the "Lonesome Dove" saga although chronologically it is the second of the four novels, taking place between "Dead Man's Walk" and "Lonesome Dove". Readers of the other volumes in series will encounter familiar names here: Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae, of course, but also Jake Spoon and Pea Eye Parker and Deets of "Dove", Long Bill Coleman and Buffalo Hump of "Walk", Famous Shoes and Charlie Goodnight of "Streets of Laredo" and others. As has become increasingly evident in his novels, McMurtry is not concerned with presenting a story of the West correct in all the minor historical details. For example, in "Comanche Moon" we find one character armed with a Winchester rifle 10 years before that weapon's introduction. Instead, his aim appears to be to create a story of about four parts gritty realism and one part romantic myth - and in "Comanche Moon" he achieves success. The novel abounds with characters more extravagant, larger-than-life personalities, yet these people are true to the story McMurtry is telling. Captain Inish Scull of the Texas Rangers and his wife, Inez, and the "Black Vaquero" Ahumado are unlikely to have had close real-life models, but in "Comanche Moon" they are forceful, fascinating figures. As is usual, McMurtry's characters are driven by their own obsessions. If I might sum up the theme of this novel, and much else of McMurtry's fiction, I would say that it would be "times change, people don't" - and not just "people" in the larger sense, but people as individuals, holding true to their own particular, narrow view of how they should live their lives. Characters like Woodrow Call and Inish Scull and Buffalo Hump are admirable because of their great integrity, no matter what destruction they seed while pursuing their individual visions of what is right. In "Comanche Moon", McMurtry's Indian characters - the Comanche Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf and the Kickapoo Famous Shoes - are perhaps more finely drawn than in any of the other Lonesome Dove books. They are not merely white men wearing paint and feathers. They live and die by their own logic, as alien as that system of belief may seem to a late Twentieth Century reader. Although any judgment must be subjective, I would rate "Comanche Moon" as at least the equal of "Streets of Laredo" and better than "Dead Man's Walk", although not so high as the magnificent "Lonesome Dove". I know that part of my enjoyment of the novel is my familiarity with several of the major characters, and my advice to any reader new to the "Lonesome Dove" saga would be to read the books in their order of publication rather than their chronological order of internal dates.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Comanch Moon has a compelling story but continuity problems, May 23, 2005

By 

ChloeDoc24*7 (Vancouver, BC., Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comanche Moon (Lonesome Dove Story, Book 2) (Mass Market Paperback)

Lonesome Dove, a masterpiece, deserved the Pulitzer Prize but the prequels and sequel have been disappointments. Comanch Moon is actually one of the better books of the series but there are some inconsistencies in continuity that make me think McMurtry forgot what he wrote before or perhaps he got someone else to wtite these less than stellar books. For instance the histories of Clara and Maggie the women who loved the main protaganists do not match up with the Lonesome Dove descriptions. Clara never returns to Austin TX to runs her parents' store as in LD after a terrible Indian attack in which her parents perish. She marries a dumb horse trader from Kentucky and leaves Texas forever leaving the store to languish in CM. Maggie, Call's ever suffering prostitute lover never makes it to Lonesome Dove to languish and die as an alcoholic as she does in the first book. Instead she dies of consumption 6 years after cleaning up her life and having Newt in Austin Tx in CM. Neither does the past marital history of Augustus ring true. Did he marry two fat women and become widowed after less than one year each or was 7 years his longest marriage?

Are they piddly details in an otherwise compelling story? Perhaps. But it is certainly annoyingly disappointing to encounter these simple continuity mistakes. Why make such mistakes in your own books? The changes wouldn't improve the story but only make one suspicious.

I think Margaret Mitchell had it right to not try to inflict on the public a sequel to Gone with the Wind. No one could ever top it. Look at the romance novel sequel that followed 50 years later written by another author and a different writing style. Take my advice. Read Lonesome Dove and enjoy but I wouldn't think it necessary to read the other books in the series.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Once again, McMurtry diverts, distorts and delights., May 11, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Comanche Moon (Unabridged) Cassette (Lonesome Dove) (Audio Cassette)

How can one man write four books about the same characters with no concern for continuity? I don't know, but I am equally clueless as to how he can dispense with continuity, alter events, change characters' histories and personalities and still make me love the work. As he did in Streets of Laraedo and Dead Man's Walk, McMurty changes certain elements of his well established characters' pasts. The changes are most glaring in this book, the immeadiate precursor to his magnificent Lonesome Dove. However, as poorly as his four Gus and Call books fit together, they stand alone very well. In Comanche Moon, McMurtry leads us from Gus and Call in their late twenties to their mid fourties. It appears to end roughly 5 or so years prior to Lonesome Dove. Many will be surprised and delighted to find that the relationship between Call and Maggie, mother of Call's son Newt, is well defined and much more significant than was alluded to in Dove. Another detail that completely reverses itself from Dove is that of the life of Jake Spoon. Far from a romantic rival with Gus for the heart of Clara Allen, Jake is a dippy young moron, afraid of any action, desperate to end his days as a Ranger alive. But much of the action here centers on a new character, Capt. Skull, the rangering Ranger captain who gives Gus and Call their first command by abandoning them and the Ranger troop in order to learn how to track by walking off with Famous Shoes. Skull is a classic McMurtry eccentric, and the only person whom really provides any suspense, as only the future of his life is unknown to us. Skull is witty and full of vim and vinegar. His battles, both mental and physical, are among the most engaging portions of the story. And the most revolting.

Certainly, the way McMurty takes liberties with characters that many love is often maddening, but when seperated from the other books, Comanche Moon stands on its own well. It is another gripping and unflinching look at an unromanticized American West, and it continues the! excellent development of the Indian characters McMurtry began in Dead Man's Walk. Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Blue Duck are fleshed out in a manner that is not often seen with Indians in most Western novels. Far from ciphers, they are realistic characters that cause you to see that Ranger-Indian fights are not as simple as Good vs. Evil. They are, rather, Man vs. Man, and Culture vs. Culture, and they are all the more heartbreaking because of it.

I don't know if McMurtry is getting lazy. I don't know if he simply doesn't give a damn about whether or not readers care. In the end, it really doesn't matter as he still can deliver page turners with the best of them. And by the the time you finish Comanche Moon, you realize that the changes in Gus and Call's history, changes that can make rereading Lonesome Dove jarring, are for the best. This is how he should have set up their pasts in Dove. It a richer, more poignant past for Gus and Call than what was alluded to in that Pulitzer Prize winning novel.

Finally, the audio presentation is top notch. Of course, how could it not be with the peerless Frank Muller as narrator?