In A Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas [Paperback]

Larry McMurtry (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: Touchstone / Simon & Schuster; Paperback Edition edition (1968)
• ASIN: B000K1DDMQ
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,388,698 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

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!, September 4, 1998

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, February 18, 2002

By 

Westley (Stuck in my head) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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. . ., August 7, 2004

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

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"