44 out of 44 people found this review helpful.
The Best Novel Ever Written about the American West
Date of Review: Oct 4, 1999
Lonesome Dove....hmmmm...you've heard about it, huh? A mini-series several years ago starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall. But for many viewers, they never had the distinct PLEASURE of reading the novel of the same name by Larry McMurtry. McMurtry deservedly won the Pulitzer prize for this classic telling of the first cattle drive north from Texas to Montana. It was the first book I've read in twenty years that I wanted to reread as soon as I completed it...and I did. Why? Because the characters that McMurtry crafted are so blessed with color and life....Gus McRae....aging former Texas Ranger who fancies himself literate because he can write two sentences of Latin verse. Captain Woodrow Call (what a great name)... a leader of the crew and a man who can go all day and not say two words....but a look of displeasure from him will have a cowhand apologizing profusely. Jake Spoon...a former Ranger himself..and friend of McRae and Call...who takes up with bad company.
And then there is Lorena...Miss Lori....a beauty abandoned by a gambler in the South Texas town of Lonesome Dove and forced to take up "whoring" as a way of life. Add in a cast of a dozen other colorful...and BELIEVABLE characters and you have the ingredients for a page turner that I challenge you to put down. You'll find yourself reading late into the night...telling yourself "just one more chapter"....and you'll look over and it will be 2:00 a.m. on your bedside clock. So ... you'll regretfully put the book down....and then pick it up as soon as you awake. I know....I know....you're saying it can't be that engrossing...but it is to readers young and old. It was the first book I ask a lady...now my wife...that I was dating to read when she asked me my favorite book....and it was the first full length novel I gave to my oldest son when her turned 12 years old. He groaned when he saw the length...and then became a convert in short order - and still is a fan five years later.
The time is the late 1870's....the railroads have not yet reached Texas...and Gus McRae decides that he and the gang need one more adventure to cap an adventurous life. He convinces Woodrow to lead the cattle drive...and off they go....battling Indians....weather....stampedes....and boredom. One of my favorite scenes has McRae and Call entering a bar in San Antonio and having the bartender call them "oldtimers". I won't give it away...but what occurs next is alone worth the price of the book.
If you have to take one book with you...only one...to that desert island we all hear about....take THIS ONE. Truly one of the GREATEST books to be written in our lifetime.
