OPINION | EDITORIAL: Larry McMurtry, un-romance writer

Larry McMurtry, a favorite

Larry McMurtry had a way of creating perfect characters in his writing. You fell in love with his characters. You wanted to meet his characters. You wanted to be in the book with his characters. Then he'd put his characters through a meat grinder.

Many will remember Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove," and before that, "The Last Picture Show." He wrote many more books, and a few screenplays. The meat grinder, however, always seemed to be waiting.

Remember Cybill Shepherd's character in "The Last Picture Show"? In a sequel to that book--we think it was "Duane's Depressed"--she was eaten by a polar bear.

We're not kidding.

Speaking of "Duane's Depressed," Karla was one of the most fun, daring, lovable characters he ever created. And then the meat grinder.

Most folks in these latitudes remember what happened to Augustus McCrae. (Who didn't read "Lonesome Dove"?) Fewer will remember how Capt. Woodrow Call ended up in "Streets of Laredo," the follow-up novel, missing limbs, eking out a living sharpening blades and repairing farm equipment. Putting all his focus into the tasks he could still accomplish. Item by item. Task by task. Mission by mission. As he always had.

Larry McMurtry died last week. The Dallas Morning News announced his death thusly: "Texas literary giant Larry McMurtry dies at 84." But he was bigger than Texas.

Larry McMurtry probably deserved the Pulitzer before he was given it for "Lonesome Dove." He wrote "Horseman, Pass By," which was published in 1961 when he was but 25 years old. That book inspired the movie "Hud" with Paul Newman.

A few years later came "The Last Picture Show," which is so well written that you taste Texas dirt in your mouth after every chapter. Just the descriptions of the boy sweeping the street are enough to make you break out into a sweat and crave a cold one. And yell at the car going by that it's going too fast.

In the mid-1970s, he wrote "Terms of Endearment," an underrated novel. He captured the forces at work between mother (Aurora) and daughter (Emma) so perfectly that a reader doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. Sometimes both. Of course, the movie would go on to have much more success. So much so that we can't find the Wikipedia page on the book, only the movie. We'll note that the Jack Nicholson astronaut character in the movie never appears in the book. The screenplay writers created that character to get Mr. Nicholson another Oscar.

Oh, and the Oscar. Larry McMurtry won one for writing the screenplay for "Brokeback Mountain."

There was something very un- romantic about Larry McMurtry's writing, even when romance was involved for the characters. Unlike many western novels, the good guys didn't always win in the McMurtry catalog. The girl didn't always fall for the boy that longed for her. Heroes didn't ride off into the sunset, having won the day. The stories led where the stories led. People die. That's life. Or that's death. The myth of the Old West--in which men wore clean shirts and the "working girls" were always pure of heart and pretty--was only a myth.

Sometimes Blue Duck gets away, and nobody chases him. Sometimes illness takes away the love of our lives. Sometimes a body is eaten by a polar bear. Larry McMurtry didn't dress up his stories and present them with a nice bow. That's not real. That's not life. Sure, romance is a part of being a human, but anybody who thinks we all end up with romance isn't living in the real world. Or at least not living in Texas.

Life is difficult. Texas is difficult. The only thing (seemingly) effortless was the way Larry McMurtry created characters. And let them lead the way into his plots, and their own lives. It seemed so effortless that we sometimes got the feeling that Mr. McMurtry didn't know where the characters were going, either, and he was only documenting their travels. And their eventual crossings.

Surely other fans of his work will have their favorite moments and favorite books. "Anything for Billy" was big for a while. So was "Texasville." And he seemed to enjoy his non-fiction work on Crazy Horse, Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley.

To celebrate his life, tonight we think we'll open up "Lonesome Dove," again. And re-read the first few pages. When Augustus is sitting on the porch in south Texas along the Rio Grande, sipping whiskey and kicking the pigs for bringing a dead snake up near the front door. Telling them to git, and go eat that stinkin' snake down by the river. Then he watches as the Hell Bitch bites a hole in Woodrow's side, before ol' Bol starts whacking that bell.

We enjoyed Larry McMurtry's work. But we loved his characters.

He once called himself a minor regional author. He even had a T-shirt printed with the message. (We note that beautiful Karla wore T-shirts with different messages on them every day.)

But on this we'd disagree with Mr. McMurtry. He wasn't a minor regional writer. He was a major regional writer. Perhaps bigger than Texas.

But few of us would know Texas, or brilliant writing, as well without his books.

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