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Lonesome Dove (Lonesome Dove #1)

4.41 of 5 stars 4.41 · rating details · 58,962 ratings · 3,213 reviews

A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning classic Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last, defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and...more

Paperback, 945 pages

Published December 15th 1988 by Pocket Books (first published 1985)

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Oct 10, 2010 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: born on a train

Recommended to Mariel by: two characters in search of a country song

My ex gave me this book with written notes in the margins of the book. He started reading it, anyway, and gave up. I've read that it is supposedly "slow" in the beginning, but I didn't feel that way. It's exactly the kind of directly into the psyche style of writing I crave the most (if the change in perspectives took time to get used to, ultimately it was complimentary of the other). I'm gonna have to buy a fresh copy... Okay, some people thought that The Wire was a slow burn and I never did. I...more My ex gave me this book with written notes in the margins of the book. He started reading it, anyway, and gave up. I've read that it is supposedly "slow" in the beginning, but I didn't feel that way. It's exactly the kind of directly into the psyche style of writing I crave the most (if the change in perspectives took time to get used to, ultimately it was complimentary of the other). I'm gonna have to buy a fresh copy... Okay, some people thought that The Wire was a slow burn and I never did. If I feel understanding and want to get to know those people, I'm gonna keep on. The something happening is the peices of the puzzle you can only put together when you have all the peices. (Unless there are millions of white or sky peices and then puzzles are a pain in the ass. Oops, forgot what I was talking about.)

For example: [selected randomly] one of the first pages says stuff like this: "The man never wasted five minutes appreciating himself; it would have meant losing five minutes off whatever job he had decided he wanted to get done that day." That's getting to know you stuff. Or: "If he felt he had to go off and sit in the dark every night, he must think it important." Their kind of thinking makes sense in the get inside your head perspectives. I'd recommend sticking with it and getting hooked, line and sinker and then the hook never comes out of your mouth. (I could keep running with this and say stuff about gasping like a fish on land, if I were the metaphorical sort. Lonesome Dove hit me hard.

Reading reviews of Lonesome Dove is me nodding vigorously "Yeah, I get that!" like the coolest book club I've never been a member of (I'm not into book clubs 'cause I'm too moody to read at set times). I'd wanna have a secret hand shake if I could. [I've only got one secret handshake in my repertoire. It's a signal my twin and I use to indicate that we are not fans of The Rock aka Dwayne Johnson. It's rock paper scissors and both parties land on paper. Cuz paper kills rock.] Cool clubs won't have me. (I dig that Woody Allen attributed a quote to Groucho Marx instead of to Mark Twain like everybody else seems to. I wouldn't want to belong to a club that'd have me as a member. This one doesn't get a choice 'cause this is the one of the (many) natures of Lonesome Dove. So I don't know what I can add, really, but this is one of those wowzers of a book that knocked me over and took over my life. I gotta pay tribute to that. That doesn't happen every day.

Pick anything like "It should have lasted forever." "These characters are my best friends." "I lost sleep over it." This is the true meaning of those words, like the first time Hamlet said "To be or not to be". Who cares if infinity times infinity squared high school kids said it later until point of cliche. Mark Twain's review will be better than mine...

Lonesome Dove is the small town you get stuck in on the way to anywhere else. No one means to stay there. Their life mistakes are like that too, but not in the METAPHORICAL way, 'cause McMurtry knows that it's not about messages to those living it. They gotta get through it first. The war is over, things are changing. The past scars remain and the old ghosts exist on top of the ones coming, on top of the daily vision and what has to get done. It's fucking up and fighting and fucking and roadtrip story and true love bromance friendship before there were defining words like bromance (Call and McCray certainly wouldn't have used that word. They'd not define it at all). Inability to have a relationship with a woman because it would call for defining. The women in their knowledge are prostitutes (Lorena is one of my favorites of my "happyhookers" shelf). It's losing the future (that you might not ever have had coming to you) of the land, encroaching loss of freedoms, loneliness of choices, bad choices. (I'm starting to see a common thread in my favorite books and films.) I relate Lonesome Dove to so much what is happening today, and what could happen as the world seems to get smaller, freedoms less. I know about problems with keeping connections and those damned labels. It's awesome that a western is the book that calls out this shit when the Western genre was often known to be this good ole days myth about what was actually pretty fucked up times, not this movie star camera shot action glory.

D'oh forgot to mention that the other characters are those people you know on the job that you don't always think about and take for granted. I didn't feel they were marginalized, just written in that working-view.(less)

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Aug 02, 2007 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: any human

I was only willing to read this book because a friend told me I had to. When I was thirty pages into it and complaining to him about being unable to handle any more discussion about horses and beans, he made me a bet: If I got to page 101 (out of 900, mind you) and I still didn't enjoy it, he'd take me out to dinner at any restaurant I wanted in New York City. If at page 101 I had warmed up to it, I had to finish. I don't think I made it past the 60th page before I knew I had "lost" the bet.

The...more

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Jul 16, 2010 tim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The earth is mostly just a boneyard. But pretty in the sunlight.

During a recent trip to the local bookstore, a discount stack of Lonesome Dove caught my distracted eye. Picking up a copy, I randomly flipped through to read three separate passages. And like an amnesiac, I promptly forgot all about the books I sought to find in the first place. Because this here was the book I didn’t know I needed to read right now.

At its core is a simple enough story—an epic cattle drive, not long after the Civil...more The earth is mostly just a boneyard. But pretty in the sunlight.

During a recent trip to the local bookstore, a discount stack of Lonesome Dove caught my distracted eye. Picking up a copy, I randomly flipped through to read three separate passages. And like an amnesiac, I promptly forgot all about the books I sought to find in the first place. Because this here was the book I didn’t know I needed to read right now.

At its core is a simple enough story—an epic cattle drive, not long after the Civil War, from southern Texas to northern Montana—but there’s nothing simple or subtle about the effects the various undercurrent narratives had on me.

As wild and raw as the vivid landscapes were continuously invoked, it is with the characters where this novel truly excels. Among a handful of major characters, I often forgot many of them were constructs made of words. That they seemed more real than the sum of a limited amount of words continually amazed me. Even minor characters came to life quickly and lingered long after exiting stage left, leaving behind solemn shadows.

Death and humor are doled out abundantly and in roughly equal measures, striking a necessary balance. For as commonly as death occurs, it often occurs violently. Not quite with the same force-fed frequency as found in Blood Meridian, but at times on the same level of intensity. That’s where the humor here helps temper the unexpected and ubiquitous death.

More than a good deal of this book’s humor emanates from one, if not the main character—Augustus McCrae. A man…I mean, a fictional character not likely to leave my thoughts anytime soon. Crowding around Gus in this harsh and brutal world are many other prominent characters, not least of all a couple of especially strong-willed women woven into the essence of this long tale.

As long as this story may be, it reads more like a novella, so quickly do the pages fly by. And when the last page passes, it passes by without complete closure—highlighting the way we all experience life outside these books. Life coming and going, surrounding everyone until abandoning us one by one. As though death were life’s joke on us all.(less)

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Dec 16, 2011 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars

HEADLINE: Where do we place Lonesome Dove and Gone With the Wind within the American Canon?

Who gives a damn? Really. What do we care? Here is what we do with Lonesome Dove and Gone With the Wind. We read them.

Half way through Lonesome Dove Augustus McCrae rides into the breaks of the Canadian River. He is tracking Blue Duck who has kidnapped Lorena. He comes upon an old adversary, Aus Frank, a former mountain man and ineffectual bank robber, in the middle of nowhere. Aus is collecting buffalo bo...more

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Oct 23, 2011 Tressa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: westerns

My favorite book of all time and the best book ever written in the English language. It was so engrossing and the characters so compelling and the adventures so entertaining, that I wanted to read it in one sitting. It's one of those reads that I envy others who have yet to read it.

Gus and Call are two of the most memorable characters in American fiction. They are the yin & yang of cowboys: one caring and comical, the other cold and unemotional.

Blue Duck is one of the most evil characters I...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Maciek rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everyone who enjoys reading

Recommended to Maciek by: Tressa

Shelves: big-tomes, historical-fiction, own-in-paperback, owned-books, western, read-in-2013, favorites, reviewed, pulitzer-prize-for-fiction

All America lies at the end of the wilderness road, and our past is not a dead past, but still lives in us. Our forefathers had civilization inside themselves, the wild outside. We live in the civilization they created, but within us the wilderness still lingers. What they dreamed, we live, and what they lived, we dream.

This is an epic novel, and the quotation by T.K. Whipple which I provided above is indeed an appropriate epigraph. It's interesting that Larry McMurty originally devised it as a...more

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Aug 19, 2011 smetchie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone who knows how to read

Recommended to smetchie by: Janet

Shelves: book-club, changed-me-forever, to-re-read, favorites, also-saw-the-movie-or-tv-show

Now this is a book. It's so good it hurts.
The snake part!?! Holy crap! I'm not aware of having experienced a more vivid moment in a book ever.
Everyone should read this book. EVERYONE! I don't give a goddamn that it's 900some pages and you already saw the miniseries with Ricky Shroeder. You still have to read it. If you love to read and you haven't read this book then you're cheating the fuck out of yourself. GET ON IT!

30 likes · like · see review

Dec 18, 2011 Kemper rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: western, modern-lit, favorites

This is one of my favoritest books ever. In fact, put a gun to my head and tell me to pick just one as my all time fave, it’d be better than even money that Lonesome Dove would be the one I’d name.

It has the bonus of not only being an incredible book but of having an excellent companion piece in the television miniseries based on it. That’s one of the great all-time fusions of print and film. I can’t read this without hearing the voices of Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston, Chris...more This is one of my favoritest books ever. In fact, put a gun to my head and tell me to pick just one as my all time fave, it’d be better than even money that Lonesome Dove would be the one I’d name.

It has the bonus of not only being an incredible book but of having an excellent companion piece in the television miniseries based on it. That’s one of the great all-time fusions of print and film. I can’t read this without hearing the voices of Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones, Anjelica Huston, Chris Cooper, Danny Glover, Diane Lane and all the rest in my head.* So every couple of years, I do a rereading of the book and then I break out the DVD of the miniseries and I immerse myself in the perfection that is this story.

* I didn’t know this until I was looking up some stuff on the net for this review, but Lonesome Dove was virtually snubbed at the Emmy Awards. War & Remembrance beat it out for best miniseries. It only managed to take a best director and a few other technical prizes. Worse yet, none of the actors nominated won. It’s a good thing I never got into any bar wagers about this, or I would have bet my house that Robert Duvall won best actor for a miniseries , and when I lost that, I would have bet my car that it had to be Tommy Lee Jones. Nope. Anjelica Huston and Diane Lane and Danny Glover all lost, too.

Hey, Emmy voters of 1990! WTF??

Why do I say the story is perfect? Start with the characters. Augustus McRae and Woodrow Call are two retired Texas Rangers who run a rinky-dink cattle company in a speck of a town called Lonesome Dove on the Texas/Mexico border. Gus and Call couldn’t be more unlikely friends. Call is a dour workaholic who has spent his life trying to be the perfect leader of men while Gus is a good-natured and lazy soul who likes to drink whiskey, play cards and spend time with Lonesome Dove’s beautiful but distant whore, Lorena Wood. Gus also delights in giving Call grief about young Newt, a boy they took in after the death of his mother. Newt’s mom was a whore that Call had visited regularly for a short time, and he’s probably the boy’s father but refuses to acknowledge it.

Their dull routine is broken when their old friend and fellow ex-Ranger Jake Spoon shows up. Jake is looking for a hiding place after accidentally shooting a man in Arkansas, and he fears that the sheriff, July Johnson, will be after him. Jake’s idle remark about having been to Montana and that it’s a cattleman’s paradise for the first men to risk the hostile Indians starts a fever in Call. He wants to be the first to drive a herd to the Montana territory and start a ranch there.

Call soon has started hiring men and stealing Mexican cattle for the drive. Gus says that Call is going to get them all killed just to have another adventure in a wild frontier, but he goes along to see his old sweetheart Clara who is living in Nebraska. Jake has taken up with Lorena and decides to travel along with the herd, much to Gus’s amusement and Call’s aggravation. The large cast of characters carry their hopes, fears and limitations with them out onto the vast plains of the American Midwest, and the drive turns out to be dangerous in ways they couldn’t even imagine.

This book has everything that anyone could want in a story. It’s epic in scale, but relatable through it’s shifting point of view through a variety of vivid characters. There’s intense western action and heart breaking love stories. It’s incredibly profound and amazingly simple at the same time. It’s hilarious at times but could reduce the toughest man in the world to tears at some points. And all of this is set during those last moments when America was still half-wild and anyone with the gumption to do so could throw together a herd of cattle and go out into the wilderness to make history or lose their scalp.(less)

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Jan 09, 2008 Charissa rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: everyone!

Shelves: literature, threw-across-room, all-time-faves

This book completely ravaged me. I didn't expect to fall in love with Gus, but dammit if I did anyway. McMurtry dragged me through every mud hole, snake pit, camp fire and stampede his characters endured. I felt every cactus prickle and tasted the beans and bad coffee. Who knew I could love the West so damn much?

Next to The Three Musketeers, this is the best man-love story around. Gus and Call are totally OTP 4evah.

I won't spoiler the story for anyone here... but there's a place in the book wher...more

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Sep 08, 2008 Monica rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone with a little time on their hands.

Recommended to Monica by: EW New Classics List

Shelves: 2008, favorites, pulitzerfiction

Just finished this beast. All 945 pages of it. I'm trying hard not to overstate my love for this book since I just finished it and I suppose its possible that some of the shine could rub off of this in the coming months. But for right now, Lonesome Dove is the best thing I've read all year and it might be my favorite book of all time. Okay, so I'm not trying hard enough apparently.

Having read Last Picture Show and now this, I can say that I am totally enamored of McMurtry's style. His deepest gi...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Stefan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

This review most probably won't do justice to this novel, but it'll have to do. Previous to this, the only thing that I've read that I'd consider a western is Dances With Wolves. Being a movie/DVD buff, I do have quite a bit of knowledge of the genre as I am a fan of western films, but for some reason, I have never been pulled into reading them.

Lonesome Dove was a natural choice for me. Having loved the mini-series, I picked up the book at a book sale some time ago in anticipation of finding the...more

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May 11, 2011 Chandra rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, nerdy-girl-bookclub, 2011-reads, american-history

I've spent a great deal of time trying analyze my love for this novel and I really can't pin it down or write about it in any coherent way. It's a big fat rambling epic about a cattle drive with a cast of mostly male characters. I don't like big fat epics, I don't like rambling and I certainly don't like macho-type novels. But I love this book - loved it when I read it twenty-something years ago, and reading it again was like revisiting an old, beloved friend - my very favorite kind of reading e...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Hanne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: absolutely everyone (adults)

Recommended to Hanne by: Next Best Book Club

Shelves: historical-fiction, books-make-brilliant-gifts, favourites, shelf-a-ton-14, and-i-would-walk-500-miles, aye-aye-captain, wild-wild-west

This book definitely earned its place as an epic classic.
It is that good! And it only keeps getting better and better and better and better. Really.

The first thing the author manages brilliantly is recreating the atmosphere and the feel of that period, so that even I as a 21st century European can transfer myself into 19th century America. I can imagine what it looks like, how it feels and how people go about their business.
This book is not a western. Or at least not what i associate with wester...more
This book definitely earned its place as an epic classic.
It is that good! And it only keeps getting better and better and better and better. Really.

The first thing the author manages brilliantly is recreating the atmosphere and the feel of that period, so that even I as a 21st century European can transfer myself into 19th century America. I can imagine what it looks like, how it feels and how people go about their business.
This book is not a western. Or at least not what i associate with westerns. I didn't even hear the "once upon a time in the west" soundtrack in my head while reading it.

The backbone of the book is the story about Gus and Call, two former rangers in Texas, who decide to take cattle north to be the first cattle ranch in Montana.
Along the way a whole bunch of secondary characters of importance are introduced. The author is in amazing control of his characters, introducing them slowly, giving us some 'coat hangers' to remember them all, like a small detail that always come back so you instantly remember who he is talking about, but without it feeling as a repetition (Lippy with the hole in his stomach, Jasper and all his fears, the Irish boys with their sad songs...)
Some you might like from the start, others will win you over page by page. With Call for instance, he waits almost 400 pages before revealing some of his motivations. It's very smartly done!

I also love that the author stays true to his characters. Some of them change through the course of the book, but the ones that are unlikely to change, actually do not, or not much at least. I love that he stuck to that. (view spoiler)

It is also the sort of book that makes me very hesitant to read any sequel. I'm not sure it's possible for a sequel to come even close to this one and i'm afraid that a sequel will screw things up for me. So i probably won't read anyting else in the series, but i probably will re-read this one a few times in the coming 40 years.

That's just how good it is.
And if you don't believe me: believe the numbers: Despite more than 47.000 ratings, it still has an average of 4,4...
(less)

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Jan 24, 2012 Leyoh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: bucketlistreads

I never thought I would enjoy this book quite as much as I did. It is/was so far away from my comfort zone but has turned out to be one of the most accomplished books I have ever read. The book is full of people looking for something. Love, fulfilment, adventure, friends, reason, peace. They waste a lot of time and loose lives making the wrong decisions. A simple description would say that Lonesome Dove is an epic cowboy adventure. Epic in more ways than one, the .epub file is 1400+ pages long b...more

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Apr 05, 2010 Jeanette rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, america, five-star-fiction, to-be-read-again, pyoo-litzers

GRAND! Just abso-fooking-lutely grand from start to finish.

8 likes · like · see review

Jun 25, 2008 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Thanks, Broadway street-book dude. Cowboys telling fart jokes and falling in love with sullen whores are EXACTLY what I want to read about right now.

Warning: This book will destroy you. I have never been so completely and utterly decimated by a novel. I don't need a book club; I need a support group.

On a side note: Maybe these are fightin' words, and I only ever read Blood Meridian, but I'll take McMurtry over McCarthy any day of the week. No Faulknerian pretensions, no torture-porn, no dogged...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Adam Wilson rated it 5 of 5 stars

I started Lonesome Dove based on a recommendation and a desire to read something very lengthy, and not by Stephen King. McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize Winner delivers 100%,

and that is just the percent that I got the first time through. To my surprise, Lonesome Dove was a western, a genre with which I am not that familiar other than a

novel by Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour each. Most seem to be rather short though but this book is 990 pages (judging by the paperback version) and every one of those

page...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Katy rated it 1 of 5 stars

I read this book in the early 1990s. I managed to finish this book, but it left me feeling squicky. I had no problem with the sex scenes, it's the weird words they use to describe things - like "carrot" - that really just bothered me. What amuses me the most about this book is that many people who are otherwise really prudish about these things have told me they loved this book (like my late mother, who also burned a copy of The Happy Hooker she found once she realized what it was about. Really,...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Sunday rated it 5 of 5 stars

O BABY BABY. I went crazy for this book; it changed my entire vernacular. Penises are now referred to only as "old carrots," and having sex is only called "poking." Not to mention the fact that I now wear chaps and drink nothing but whisky. The cowboy life is my dream fantasy life; even with all of the injuries and general poor health. Never brush your teeth! Prostitution as a fine career endeavor!

One of my favorite epics; the characters are beautifully developed even in their own simplicity. O...more

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Apr 15, 2011 Jon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites, historical, pullitzer

This probably wouldnt have been a 5 if it was shorter, funnily enough. But I feel like Ive been reading it so dern long that it earns itself another stripe just by familiarity. Its so nice when you've been in the same territory with a big long book for a while and it feels comforting to pick up and slip back in with the characters and plot with ease. I think you really feel your on the journey with them across the wide open spaces and going through their trials and tribulations. I loved Gus and...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Brad rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: pulitzer, western, lost-reviews

This review was written in the late nineties (just for myself), and it was buried in amongst my things until today, when I uncovered the journal it was written in. I have transcribed it verbatim (although square brackets indicate some additional information for readability) from all those years ago. It is one of my lost reviews.

My favourite thing about Lonesome Dove was Augustus McCrae. He was the cowboy embodiement of Denholm, which predetermined that I would love Gus. Reading Lonesome Dove was...more

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Apr 20, 2008 Vulgrin rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone interested in the American West who has patience to endure a long novel

Recommended to Vulgrin by: Chompa

This is a hard book to review. Lonesome Dove is not a "story" like a traditional story with a beginning, middle, climax, and end. It's more like you are riding along in these people's lives for a while, until you turn up the trail on your own.

This isn't a spaghetti western with good guys trying to find the black hats so they can "head them off at the pass." It's also not about one of the great legends of the old west like Doc Holiday or Billy the Kid.

It's simply the telling of a time in the life...more

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Feb 06, 2008 Pam rated it 4 of 5 stars

I remember when I decided to read this book. Prior to this, I don't think that I would have ever decided to pick up a true Western. I might have considered watching one if I was really bored or it had extremely good ratings, but even then I would hesitate.
Anyway, I was lifeguarding and asking the usual "What are you reading?" to sunbathers so I could have something besides the hot sun to ponder on. This girl engrossed in her book answered with Lonesome Dove and couldn't stop raving about it. I t...more

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Dec 11, 2007 Will Klein rated it 5 of 5 stars

Probably, and justifiably, McMurtry's most beloved novel, Lonesome Dove can be the story of a couple fellas getting old in a changing west- and when I reread (regularly) I admit I usually skip all the non Gus & Call stuff- but it's also an epic painting of the American West itself: almost every aspect of the Classic Western is included, kitchen sink as well, all viewed through the dusty and cracked glass of age. The west is getting old in this book, and there isn't a lot left of it. All of t...more Probably, and justifiably, McMurtry's most beloved novel, Lonesome Dove can be the story of a couple fellas getting old in a changing west- and when I reread (regularly) I admit I usually skip all the non Gus & Call stuff- but it's also an epic painting of the American West itself: almost every aspect of the Classic Western is included, kitchen sink as well, all viewed through the dusty and cracked glass of age. The west is getting old in this book, and there isn't a lot left of it. All of the vignettes the various travelers come across in their journeys are archetypes and leftovers of the Old West, there is little to do with trains and telegraphs in Lonesome Dove, despite it probably taking place in the late 1870s. Instead we get cowboys, outlaws, riverboatmen, buffalo hunters (and, wonderfully, an old hunter collecting the bones to sell), we get the whore with the heart of gold as well as a brief interlude with her opposite: the randy, sanguine whore who only keeps a semi-regular man around to drag out the bodies. Fierce indians, sad indians, sometimes one and the same. The cowboys (of course), gamblers, indian fighters, gunmen, road agents, trappers, and even- towards the end- a strange flashback to the plainsmen of the first half of the century in an creaky and broke-back mountain man named Old Hugh (a Hugh Glass reference?)

McMurtry avoids any appearances (except by mention in conversation) by famous real life westerners in this novel, with the exception of Charlie Goodnight, which is fitting. Goodnight and his partner, Oliver Loving, were probably an inspiration for the characters of Gus and Call, so a cameo is appropriate.

It works as an epic adventure, a character study, and a study of the time and place: it's a damn fine read. The later three novels (two prequels, one sequel) lacked a lot of the pep and energy of this first installation. I love this book anyway, and the warmth I always feel for it when I think of it outweighs my beefs with it, and the lesser novels of the series.(less)

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Dec 29, 2007 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ah, my very first western.

As I began Lonesome Dove, I felt like I was clawing my way through a desert without water; it begins that slowly. After about the first...third of the book (or about 300 pages), things finally picked up, and I began to enjoy it.

One thing I noticed and really liked about the book was the hero's journey feel of it. Following the journeys of several different characters revealed their various encounters with evil and with good. It felt like this book had hundreds of chara...more

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Dec 15, 2007 Ted rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-literature

I had this book on my top choices from a list of books that we might be assigned back in junior year of high school. Got "A Farewell to Arms" instead. But I found a hardcover in good condition for about $2 a few years later, so I got around to it eventually.
Larry McMurtry's epic is good enough that I'm thinking about reading others in the Lonesome Dove saga, although I probably won't - too many books, too little time. Lonesome Dove was certainly enjoyable. Entertaining, probably a less cerebral...more

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Sep 27, 2007 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone and everyone -- there is no earthly reason not to read this novel

I am giving this novel five stars because Goodreads doesn't allow me to give it ten.

Somewhere between its opening images of two snakes eating a rattlesnake and its final heartbreaking depictions of a good man just doing the wrong thing, I knew that I was going to be editing my review of A Prayer for Owen Meany because it is no longer my favorite novel of all time. Lonesome Dove is.

McMurtry pulls off an astonishing feat: He makes 940+ pages of cattle driving immensely readable. Wonderfully vivid...more

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Apr 07, 2013 KC rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sheer-awesomeness

My husband picked this up for me from the shop where he works because I love horses and cowboy stories. I already had a couple of other books on the go so just opened up to the first page to see what I thought and that was it, hooked right away. As a Brit, I've always held a perhaps slightly over-romanticized view of the American Wild West but this book put that to bed pretty quickly. McMurtry writes with a gloriously understated, matter-of-fact tone that allows the characters room to tell the s...more

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Jan 02, 2012 Sara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I don’t know why I’ve always avoided reading this novel despite having a love for long books (I get depressed when they end… so the longer the better). Or maybe it was because I never really had a taste for American literature, but I pretty much went into this novel cold turkey. I’d read one McMurtry book before – a nonfiction about his love of reading and rare book collecting - and I knew he used to hang out a lot at the Rice University library where I went to school, but other than that all I...more I don’t know why I’ve always avoided reading this novel despite having a love for long books (I get depressed when they end… so the longer the better). Or maybe it was because I never really had a taste for American literature, but I pretty much went into this novel cold turkey. I’d read one McMurtry book before – a nonfiction about his love of reading and rare book collecting - and I knew he used to hang out a lot at the Rice University library where I went to school, but other than that all I knew about Lonesome Dove was that it had been made into a TV series, and that it was a western.

So finally I get around to reading it and now, four days later, it’s over and I’ll all depressed again because I turned the last page.

The premise of it is quite simple – two old time Texas Ranger decide one day to round up all the horses and cows they can steal from Mexico and head for Montana after Jake Spoon showed back up in Lonesome Dove and told them of all the untouched, free land up there. And off they go with practically the whole town in tow, including two pigs, the saloon's piano player, and a whore.

The novel has many side plots that follow the stories of Jake Spoon, July Johnson, Elmira (July’s runaway wife) Roscoe (July’s brother in law), Lorena, and Clara and so the chapters will often veer away from the main cattle drive for a while, but unlike many books I’ve read with side plots, these only added to them, and I didn’t find myself wanting to read quickly through them to get ‘back to the good stuff.’

Though the plot moves along with plenty of adventure (after the first hundred pages of talking about cows, pigs, and rattle snakes) the book is character driven and I haven’t met more artfully penned characters in literature before. I'd like to say more about the main characters (Newt, Captain Call, and Gus) but half of the beauty of this novel is discovering these men for yourself. Don’t be surprised if while reading Lonesome Dove you look down to find yourself wearing cowboy boots and talking with a Texas ‘twang, and proud of it ;-)
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Jul 22, 2011 Rusty rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: western, own, fiction, author-s-best, read-in-2011, favorites

Great characterization. Good pacing. Once you get some momentum, the length ceases to be daunting. The "love story" aspect didn't irk me like I expected. The fact that I've seen the mini-series only helped to enhance the read. Best western I've read. I feel like I ought to apologize to the ghost of Louis L'amour, who has been my go-to western author since I started reading books without pictures, but it's true - best western I've read.

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About Larry McMurtry

Among many other accolades he was the co-winner of an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for Brokeback Mountain in 2006.

Larry McMurty was born in Wichita Falls Texas in 1936. His first published book Horseman, Pass By was adapted into the film "Hud".

McMurty went on to publish many more novels, a number of which went on to become movies as well as a TV mini-series.

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“If you want one thing too much it’s likely to be a disappointment. The healthy way is to learn to like the everyday things, like soft beds and buttermilk—and feisty gentlemen.” — 114 people liked it

“It ain’t dying I’m talking about, it’s living. I doubt it matters where you die, but it matters where you live.” ~spoken by Augustus McCrae” — 98 people liked it

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