No one is neutral about Texas. It is too big to ignore and too boisterous to leave the rest of us alone. First published in 1968, In a Narrow Grave is the classic statement of what it means to come from Texas. In these essays, McMurtry's fine prose opens a window into the complex workings of America's largest state. As the author reveals:
"Before I was out of high school, I realized I was witnessing the dying of a way of life -- the rural, pastoral way of life. In the Southwest the best energies were no longer to be found on the homeplace, or in the small towns; the cities required these energies and the cities brought them.
Editorial Reviews
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A. C. Greene Takes apart Texas with all the skill and sadness of a master surgeon performing a postmortem on his mother.
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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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I would give this book ten stars if allowed to do so!,
By A Customer
This review is from: IN A NARROW GRAVE: Essays on Texas (A Touchstone book) (Paperback)
In A Narrow Grave depicts Texas according to its geographic divisions exactly. McMurtry describes the people, customs, morals and behaviors of each of the divisions of Texas to a tee! If the reader happens to be from Texas or has lived extensively in Texas, he/she knows how accurate McMurtry's descriptions are and cannot help spending a large amount of the reading time laughing because of the accuracy. This books is absolutely enjoyable over and over again. My wish, is that he would write a sequel and revist the state again, doing a 90's or turn of the century version.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent companion to early McMurtry novels,
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This review is from: In a Narrow Grave : Essays on Texas (Paperback)
In a Narrow Grave is a short collection of essays published in 1968 after McMurtry's first three novels ("Horeseman, Pass By," "Leaving Cheyenne," and "The Last Picture Show"). The themes explored in these works of fiction are delved into further in this non-fiction work. Specifically, McMurtry discusses growing up in rural Texas and how that influenced his work. The main theme of the essays, not surprisingly, is the death of small town Texas as people abandoned the country for the big cities (he focuses on Dallas, Houston, and Austin).Perhaps the most interesting chapter is the last one; McMurtry talks about his family, which includes several generations of Texas ranchers and cowboys. Many of the stories he tells have made their way into his novels, so one really begins to appreciate just how autobiographical his novels are. I also greatly enjoyed the chapter about the filming of the movie version of his novel, "Horseman, Pass By" (the movie is called "Hud" - a great classic). Another interesting section describes McMurtry's road trip across Texas. Less enjoyable was the chapter on Texas writers pre-1960, which focused on several non-fiction writers of whom I was unaware. Overall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit and look forward to reading more of McMurtry's work. If you like McMurtry's fiction work, then you'll also likely enjoy this short compendium.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Messing with Texas. . .,
By
This review is from: In a Narrow Grave : Essays on Texas (Paperback)
McMurtry, in this collection of essays about Texas, says he prefers fiction to nonfiction, for various reasons, but I for one find these ambivalent ruminations on his home state more enjoyable than some of his fiction. The insights come fast and furious in this short book, by comparison with a slow-moving novel like "Moving On," written about this same time, where a few ideas are stretched thin across several hundred pages.Published in 1968, the content of "Narrow Grave" will seem dated to some readers. Written in the shadow of the assassination in Dallas and while another Texan was in the White House, the essays capture Texas in a period of rough transition from its rural past to its globalized present (the rise and fall of Enron would certainly have been featured in a current version of this book). Much of it is timeless, however. It includes one of my favorite McMurtry essays, "Take My Saddle From the Wall: A Valediction," in which he provides a history of the McMurtry family, who settled in the 1880s on 320 acres west of Wichita Falls and in the following generation relocated to the Panhandle to live mostly as cowboys and ranchers. In this essay, McMurtry separates the mythic cowboy from the actual one and describes how cowboys are probably the biggest believers in the myths about them. It's full of ironies, colorful personalities, and wonderful details. Altogether, the book attempts to present an unsentimental portrait of a state that also tends to get carried away by its own myths. The result is often a jaundiced view and gets to sounding like the worst Paul Theroux travel writing, where it seems like the writer has a personal grudge against the place he's describing. A car trip from Brownsville to the Panhandle is great fun for the wealth of local color captured along the way, but McMurtry focuses on every unhappy and unfortunate detail as if to warn the reader away from ever doing the same. The description of a fiddlers contest in East Texas is downright unkind. It's easy to see, however, that it's a lover's quarrel McMurtry has with Texas. I gladly recommend this entertaining book to readers curious about the Lone Star State and the man who wrote "The Last Picture Show" and "Lonesome Dove"
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
IN 1961 I published a first novel called Horseman, Pass By, a title I felt sure the world would remember. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
narrow grave, most cowboys Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Uncle Johnny, Archer County, West Texas, San Antonio, William Jefferson, East Texas, Rio Grande, Uncle Jim, Charles Goodnight, Los Angeles, Aunt Ida, Frank Dobie, Palo Duro, Teddy Blue, Wichita Falls, Brandon de Wilde, John Graves, Louisa Francis, New Mexico, Paul Newman, Texas Shorty, Archer City, Cabaret Two, Clarendon Country Club, Cripple Creek New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
IN 1961 I published a first novel called Horseman, Pass By, a title I felt sure the world would remember. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
narrow grave, most cowboys Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Uncle Johnny, Archer County, West Texas, San Antonio, William Jefferson, East Texas, Rio Grande, Uncle Jim, Charles Goodnight, Los Angeles, Aunt Ida, Frank Dobie, Palo Duro, Teddy Blue, Wichita Falls, Brandon de Wilde, John Graves, Louisa Francis, New Mexico, Paul Newman, Texas Shorty, Archer City, Cabaret Two, Clarendon Country Club, Cripple Creek New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 40
books:
See all 40 books this book cites
90
books
cite this book:
See all 90 books citing this book
- The Texas Rangers: A Century of Frontier Defense by Walter Prescott Webb on 4 pages
- The Great Frontier by Walter Prescott Webb on 4 pages
- Goodbye to a River: A Narrative by John Graves on page 19, page 53, and Back Matter
- Adventures with a Texas Naturalist by Roy Bedichek on page 25, page 37, and Back Matter
- Tongues of the Monte by Jf Dobie on page 45, page 50, and Back Matter
See all 40 books this book cites
- Larry McMurtry and the West: An Ambivalent Relationship (Texas Writers Series) by Mark Busby on 26 pages
- Larry McMurtry: A Critical Companion (Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers) by John Reilly on 10 pages
- State of Mind: Texas Literature and Culture (Tarleton State University Southwestern Studies in the Humanities, No 10) by Tom Pilkington on 9 pages
- This Stubborn Self: Texas Autobiographies by Bert Almon on 6 pages
- The Texas Legacy of Katherine Anne Porter (Texas Writers Series) by James T. F Tanner on 5 pages
See all 90 books citing this book
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