Telegraph Days [LARGE PRINT] (Hardcover)

by Larry McMurtry (Author) "I HOPE YOU'RE carpenter enough to build an honest coffin," I told Jackson, my younger brother..." (more)
Key Phrases: Rita Blanca, Bill Cody, Wild West (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
McMurtry's latest skips through western lore with a wry smile. Marie Antoinette "Nellie" Courtright and her brother, Jackson, bereft of family after their Virginia clan dies off one by one, arrive in Rita Blanca in 1876, in what would become the Oklahoma Panhandle, to remake themselves. Jackson is made a deputy sheriff and Nellie takes over the telegraph office. In short order, Jackson shoots down an entire gang of outlaws, and Nellie promptly writes it up to launch a lucrative literary career. Other adventures await: she becomes manager of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, boldly faces down Jesse James's attempt to rob her and witnesses the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. She becomes mayor of Rita Blanca, a mother of six and, later, friends with Lillian Gish and William B. Mayer. Beautiful and sexually insatiable, Nellie is a witty, sophisticated, accomplished, cunning, impudent and highly improbable woman—more than a match for any man she meets, which isn't saying much, since they're all idiots. She also is little more than a reworking of several previous McMurtry heroines, especially The Berrybender Narratives' Tasmin. This tale is contrived, episodic and lacks cohesion, and its constant comedy is self-conscious. But most readers won't be able to help cracking a smile over McMurtry's 38th book, as purposely over-the-top as an episode of South Park. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From The Washington Post
Easterners write literature; Southerners write literature; Westerners write Westerns. For years, that adage was a burr under the saddle of writers west of the Mississippi -- until Larry McMurtry won the Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove and moved the Western out of the genre category.

With Telegraph Days, the prolific Texas writer of fiction and nonfiction, who also won an Academy Award for the script of "Brokeback Mountain," has done a bit of backsliding. Telegraph Days is no Pulitzer contender, but it's still a darn good read: an entertaining spoof about the Wild West that brings alive the romance of outlaws, gunfighters and shootouts.

McMurtry parts with the real West right there, of course. Dying in the West was no more romantic than dying anywhere else. The real West was a sober place, peopled by fortune hunters, psychopaths, charlatans and a few decent people. But how much fun is that? In Telegraph Days, McMurtry puts aside the history of greed and conquest to recreate the West of the dime novels and Wild West shows, the land of bigger-than-life characters -- an era more Cat Ballou than Clint Eastwood.

The heroine is Nellie Courtright, a very forward young lady -- actually, a bit of a slut. (She's already canoodled with Wild Bill Hickok and George Custer.) In her own words, she's "twenty-two, kissable, and of an independent disposition." Nellie and her brother Jackson, 17, are orphaned after their father "hung himself to death." This is not an introspective book, so we're not sure why their father committed suicide, but the deaths of a wife, six children and various servants in the days since they all left Virginia for a better life in the Cimarron country might have had something to do with it. Besides, death is no stranger in Texas. When a neighbor hears of their father's demise, he says, "Damnit! I expect you'd welcome breakfast." The orphans spend little time mourning. Instead, they rush off to the nearest town, Rita Blanca, where Nellie convinces the sheriff, one of her paramours, to make her brother a deputy. Nellie takes over the telegraph office.

Jackson has barely strapped on his gun before the six dreaded Yazee brothers ride into town, murder the sheriff and are about to club Nellie and Jackson. When Nellie commands her brother to shoot, he fires six bullets, each one striking the heart of a Yazee. "That makes you the biggest hero in the whole West!" Nellie tells him. Journalists and others, including Buffalo Bill Cody, descend on Rita Blanca to interview the boy-hero. The showman wants to hire Jackson, but the boy's shooting luck has deserted him, so Cody employs Nellie to oversee his far-flung investments. From there her adventures continue, to Tombstone and the OK Corral and eventually out to Hollywood, where the Old West is celebrated and romanticized on the new silver screen.

"Once is enough to live your life through, ain't it?" a friend asks toward the end of the book. Nellie agrees. After all, who could live that life twice? With Telegraph Days, McMurtry has created a modern-day dime novel, a romantic knock-up of the West -- proof that an old-fashioned oater can be as much fun to read as a literary work.

Reviewed by Sandra Dallas
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 496 pages
• Publisher: Wheeler Publishing (June 7, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597222496
• ISBN-13: 978-1597222495
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,959,133 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars McMurtry's attempts to destroy the western myth, only seem to make it stronger!, May 18, 2006

By	Joe Grundig "Analyst" (USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Telegraph Days: A Novel (Hardcover)

I have always been a big fan of McMurtry's western novels, though his most recent efforts have not been his best. MrMurtry likes to tell us he is demythologize the west, yet his best books seem to resonate with readers because they have the exact opposite effect. Folks loved "Lonesome Dove" because it gave them every thing they wanted in a western (the myth) and more. In "Telegraph days" we are shown the final days of the frontier (when most of these myths were born) and we are introduced to Nellie Courtright, a telegraph operator in Rita Blanca, in the then outlaw territory of Oklahoma. Nellie's fortunes change when she writes a dime novel about her younger brother single handedly wiping out a gang of desperate outlaws (something he did do, but only through dumb luck). The story follows Nellie's life as she meets many of the iconic figures of the American west from Buffalo Bill to Wyatt Earp (Even witnessing the shoot out at the OK Corral, and of course McMurtry puts his spin on this very mythic event of the old west!). As in his best works McMurtry deftly mixes humor with a sadness for things past, that in the end only seems to create his own myth of the west-one I enjoyed very much! If you like McMurtry, Check out "Across the High Lonesome" a modern day western that I purchased after seeing McMurtry had given the book high marks----and he was right, great story!Across the High Lonesome

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Dangerous Ground, June 12, 2008

By	Richard A. Mitchell (candia, new hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Telegraph Days: A Novel (Paperback)

It is always dangerous for a man to write in the voice of a woman, and this is an exhibit of those dangers. The main charactger and narrator is Nellie. Her voice did not come off as genuine. Her entire personality seemed to be what a man would like to see in a woman - an aggressive woman who loves men. This was true for her entire personality, not just her admitted obsession with "copulation" (the frequent references became dull).

The fictitious supporting characters in the book were interesting and the best part of the book. They were actually more interesting than the narrator. The famous supporting cast included Wild Bill Hickcock and Buffalo Bill, with a cameo by Billy the Kid. They seemed contrived. It was the unknown fictitious characters that gave any genuine western flavor to the book.

There was some good humor and spoofing of the old western novels, but all in all, the plot lacked depth and at times approached tedium. Although the book was not awful, there was little to recommend it. Nellie has an interesting life, but it did not seem the author was that invested in it. Therefore neither is the reader.

A quick light read, but nothing great.

23 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars sending out an S.O.S., June 7, 2006

By	Richard Cumming "richo" (blue state) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Telegraph Days: A Novel (Hardcover)

Larry McMurtry is a legend. Can he afford to coast? With that Oscar for the screenplay to Brokeback Mountain joining the Pulitzer for Lonesome Dove in his trophy case can McMurtry afford to write a complete dud? I guess so. Telegraph Days is a yawner. His protagonist, Nellie is a one-dimensional nymphomaniac who never lets us know what she really thinks. Just sex...all the time...sex...every guy she meets is a potential bedmate. McMurtry tosses in famous names like so many Madison Avenue product placements. General Custer wants her. Wild Bill Hickock wants her. Buffalo Bill doesn't want her enough, and so on. The book seems to think itself a comedy. More like a sedative. So lame. So effortlessly mundane. McMurtry is on automatic pilot here. He can do better.