Midnight Cowboy [Mass Market Paperback]

James Leo Herlihy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1995

The classic American novel that was the source for the Oscar-winning film starring Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, now back in print from Scribner. Joe Buck, a good-looking, naively charming Texas 'cowboy' who's convinced that he's the salvation of many love-starved New York women, makes his way to the Big Apple to seek his fortune. Trouble is, his well-to-do clientele never materialises and the only wealth he finds is in the friendship of Ratso Rizzo, a scrounging, sleazy, small-time con man with big dreams. Living on the tattered fringe of society, these two outcasts develop an unlikely bond - one that transcends their broken dreams and get-rich-quick schemes and makes MIDNIGHT COWBOY that rarest of things...every bit as moving now as it was when it was first published. MIDNIGHT COWBOY is the powerful and unforgettable novel of the compelling need of human beings for one another.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

James Leo Herlihy was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1927. His first novel ALL FALL DOWN was published in 1960, and 1965 saw the appearance of MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Herlihy's lasting fame is based on the popularity of the book and the movie that was based on the novel. He died in 1993. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback
• Publisher: Plume (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556111916
• ISBN-13: 978-1556111914
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #527,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far better than the film, January 18, 2000

By 

Tyler Smith (Denver, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Midnight Cowboy (Mass Market Paperback)

It's hard to understand why this '60s gem has become a difficult find. The film, a watered-down version saved by a great Dustin Hoffman performance, has certainly not been forgotten. Yet few people seem to have sought out the original work.

This is a shame because the novel is much more satisfying than the one-note film. The background of the guileless main character, Joe Buck (first cousin to "Being There"'s Chance) is brought out in a series of mysterious incidents that put his fateful trip to New York into perspective.

The book also benefits from a narrative voice that ranges from flat objectivity to the wise and knowing tone of a fable teller. This voice also manages to capture the benign anonymity of big-city life. Against this backdrop, we see Joe Buck wander in search of a truth he can not name.

His destiny arrives in the person of a street urchin/criminal, Enrico Salvatore (Ratso) Rizzo. Those who have not read the book but have seen the film will be surprised that Herlihy's character is a boy -- though of course street-hardened beyond his years. This detail hardly detracts from Hoffman's performance in the film. Yet in the book it lends a poignancy to the character and his tragedy that the movie didn't capture.

Post-modernists may be impatient with the streaks of '60s idealism that run through the book. For me, the book strikes just the right tone for our age: violence is juxtaposed with life-affirming ideals in the novel's summation.

A neglected minor classic; highly recommended.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Herlihy's Classic, November 21, 2004

By 

Lawrence Buentello (San Antonio, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Midnight Cowboy (Paperback)

Herlihy's gift to American literature was this novel. Though the rest of his work is less remarkable, the author created a special vision of American life in Midnight Cowboy. Herlihy's reputation was founded on his ability to write about "grotesqueries" in an authentic voice, and nowhere is this talent better illustrated than in the exploits of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo. The novel is full of contrasting elements that go to the heart of Buck's desire to be more than he has been in his young life. His failures as a son, as a military man and as a women's man were only glossed over in the movie, but are fully explored in the book, and serve as impetus for him to continually seek what he perceives to be his destiny. Buck's transition from southwestern hayseed to knowledgeable New Yorker (with the characteristics of each location carefully explored) is painfully rendered; his ignorance of sophisticated (if not corrupt) urban behavior is contrasted against Rizzo's phenomenal knowledge of all things sleazy (though Rizzo maintains a kind of corrupt righteousness in his appraisal of his own bizarre talents). Joe Buck moves from the Purgatorial heat of Texas to the frozen Hell of New York City, and, with the help of the complex mentality of Rizzo, manages to find redemption in the dream of Florida sunshine. Again, this Dantesque journey of a naïve dreamer is beautifully explored in the most grotesque environments. That Joe Buck was able to carry Rizzo with him into that light of redemption is the most poignant aspect of the novel.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful sketch of lives lived beneath the radar of society, July 29, 2004

By 

santa monica reader (Santa Monica, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Midnight Cowboy (Paperback)

Our pop culture offers us numerous, superficial views of lives lived like sit-coms or melodramas, clothed in Gap attire, well-groomed and comfortably normal. Here is a compassionate story of friendship among two fringe dwellers, ugly on the surface, and whom few would deign to look at in passing on the street. Joe Buck is a young, dumb narcissist who believes he can take New York by storm as a stud sought after by rich, lonely high-society women. His backstory comprises the first third of the book, a prosaic telling of an unwanted, unexceptional child whose only caretaker is a preening, whorish beautician who may or not be his mother or grandmother. Loneliness, neglect and some brutal encounters leave Joe to fantasize about finding his place elsewhere. He comes to New York. Once there, his consciousness about the world and his place in it dawn on him with painful awareness; his prized leather jacket becomes stained, his boots begin to smell, he bathes in public toilets and catches glimpses of himself in store windows which shock and depress him. Just as his very survival becomes in doubt he meets a city-bred troll aptly nicknamed, Ratso. Through all Joe's encounters with duplicitous street preachers, suburban molesters and, comically, neurotic New York women, his only bond and loyalty come incongruously to be shared with Ratso, left homeless by the tragedies of his own childhood. The redemption which comes at the end for both of them, is dark, bitter and grim, and yet it comes as a result of the moral choices which these two outcasts make in a world that is otherwise brutally immoral.