Lonesome Dove (Mass Market Paperback)

by Larry McMurtry (Author) "WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake-not a very big one..." (more)
Key Phrases: Pea Eye, Blue Duck, Lonesome Dove (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Larry McMurtry, in books like The Last Picture Show, has depicted the modern degeneration of the myth of the American West. The subject of Lonesome Dove, cowboys herding cattle on a great trail-drive, seems like the very stuff of that cliched myth, but McMurtry bravely tackles the task of creating meaningful literature out of it. At first the novel seems the kind of anti-mythic, anti-heroic story one might expect: the main protagonists are a drunken and inarticulate pair of former Texas Rangers turned horse rustlers. Yet when the trail begins, the story picks up an energy and a drive that makes heroes of these men. Their mission may be historically insignificant, or pointless--McMurtry is smart enough to address both possibilities--but there is an undoubted valor in their lives. The result is a historically aware, intelligent, romantic novel of the mythic west that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Review
Weaves a dense web of subplots involving secondary characters and out-of-the-way places, with the idea of using the form of a long old-fashioned realistic novel to create an accurate picture of life on the American frontier. . . . The Great Cowboy Novel. -- New York Times Book Review, Nicholas Lemann

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 960 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (December 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067168390X
• ISBN-13: 978-0671683900
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (400 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,076 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Great American Novel! (I'd give it 10 stars!)., October 13, 2006

By	Bob Blister "Radio Head" - See all my reviews

I have never really cared for Westerns so I started this book with some trepidation. My worries soon evaporated as I read the opening chapter, this was no western in the traditional sense, but a book about people and relationships in the harsh American frontier. I was soon enthralled by the characters involved in this epic cattle drive. the quick witted Gus McCrae, the Tancturn Woodrow Call, the kid Newt, Jake Spoon, the womanizing ex ranger, Lorena the prostitute, and Gus's lost love Claire. The book is over 800 pages long but I have never been sadder to finish a book. If you liked "Lonesome Dove" I highly recomend Across the High Lonesome I picked it up after seeing Larry McMurty's recomendation, and he was right!

73 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tolstoy on the Range, August 21, 2000

By	Ted Ficklen (Saint Louis, MO USA) - See all my reviews

Stay with me here. I'm serious. I think Lonesome Dove can standcomparison to Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Of course, I've only read Tolstoy in translation, so chances are I've missed alot, but there is no question that McMurtry creates something here very close to that impossible dream: The Great American Novel. I dont know that any other American writer has ever suceeded on this scale, which is why I go to Tolstoy.

McMurtry uses the Western as a starting point, but there is a little of everything here. Surely there has never been another American Western with so many varied characters, both men and and women. McMurtry juggles many different points of view, but manages to give each of his characters a unique voice. Most remarkable of all, I think, are the women in the book, who manage to escape the usual stereotypes of madonna or whore, even though many of them are, quite literally, prostitutes.

Lonesome Dove is written in a deceptively simple, unpretentious style. I've just finished reading it for the second time. Despite its length it is really a fast read, since it is one of those books that demands to be taken with you where ever you go until you are done.

69 of 86 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One word: magnificent, November 9, 2002

By	Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

I have never been a fan of the literary western genre and confess that I read this book solely because I watched the movie based upon this book. Incredibly, the book supercedes the movie and McMurtry's characterization of Woodrow and Gus are truly stunning. It's the characters that turn this book into a compelling classic, rarely does the reader encounter such deftly-drawn and intriguing men as McCall and McCrae. You feel as if you are in Lonesome Dove with these men, and with them every step of the way from Texas to Montana. It's a magnificent journey and McMurtry is a superlative writer.

Even if you've never read a western book in your life, this is a literary masterpiece, the Shakespeare of the range, so to speak.