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Thalia, Texas #2
Leaving Cheyenne
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry comes the second novel about love and loss on the great plains of Texas. From 1920’s ranching to range cowboys and WWII grief, McMurtry is the undisputed father of the Western literary epic.
Leaving Cheyenne traces the loves of three West Texas characters as they follow that sundown trail: Gideon Fry, the serious rancher; Johnny McCloud, the free-spirited cowhand; and Molly Taylor, the sensitive woman they both love and who bears them each a son. Told in alternating perspectives over sixty years, Leaving Cheyenne follows their dreams, secrets, and grief against a changing American landscape.
Tragic circumstances mark the trail, but fans of McMurtry’s distinctive style will cherish his unforgettable characters and pathos of the American West.
Leaving Cheyenne traces the loves of three West Texas characters as they follow that sundown trail: Gideon Fry, the serious rancher; Johnny McCloud, the free-spirited cowhand; and Molly Taylor, the sensitive woman they both love and who bears them each a son. Told in alternating perspectives over sixty years, Leaving Cheyenne follows their dreams, secrets, and grief against a changing American landscape.
Tragic circumstances mark the trail, but fans of McMurtry’s distinctive style will cherish his unforgettable characters and pathos of the American West.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
294 people are currently reading
2724 people want to read
About the author
Larry McMurtry
150 books4,051 followersLarry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 345 reviews
April 19, 2021
“Life is just a hard, mean business, sometimes.”
Dear Larry-
How odd that I had picked up this book to read the day they announced your death. And how fitting. Thank you sir for Gideon Fry, Molly Taylor, and Johnny McCloud. Thank you for writing a complete lifetime of 3 Texans that somehow was my life too. Thank you for creating their lifetimes of love, friendship, joys, and errors. Thank you for doing what the great poets do, writing in a manner that implies greater truths than the words alone convey. LEAVING CHEYENNE touched my soul. What a gift that is.
Thank you!
Much love,
Brian
LEAVING CHEYENNE is a stunning book that follows three friends from their teenage years to old age/death and Larry McMurtry has created convincing characterizations at each stage. How does one do that? I felt like I experienced three lifetimes in a book that is under 300 pages!
The text picks up in the nineteen teens and ends in the early nineteen sixties. Divided into three parts, each part is told in first person by one of the 3 main characters. Part 1 is the teenaged Gideon Fry, Part 2 is the middle aged Molly Taylor, and Part 3 is from sixty four year old Johnny McCloud. The changing perspectives, and the changing values and thoughts that the different ages bring combine to tell a complete story about all three characters and the very intermingled lives they lead. In each part the voice of the narrator is spot on, truthful to the character, and the reader is immersed completely.
Some highlights:
McMurtry deftly captures the jealously and love that two men feel in a best friendship, oftentimes in the same moment. There is an instance where Gideon is glad that his friend Johnny does not succeed in winning the attentions of a women (Molly) that they both pine for. At the same time he is depressed because Johnny does not succeed. The paradoxical truth the moment conveys is brilliantly done.
Check this out, “And I knew I oughtn’t to say a word: the more I said, the more we would lose. But I loved him, so I fought anyway.” Anyone who has ever been in a real relationship can ponder a long time on a sentence like that. The text is strewn with moments like this. In this instance, Molly is fighting with Gideon, and knows that the fight will cause more problems than it solves, and yet the fight is necessary.
When I finished the novel, I kept staring at the last page. No spoilers, but the awesome power of it is all that it does not say.
LEAVING CHEYENNE was my 6th McMurtry novel. I am so very glad that there are many more on my “to read” pile.
Dear Larry-
How odd that I had picked up this book to read the day they announced your death. And how fitting. Thank you sir for Gideon Fry, Molly Taylor, and Johnny McCloud. Thank you for writing a complete lifetime of 3 Texans that somehow was my life too. Thank you for creating their lifetimes of love, friendship, joys, and errors. Thank you for doing what the great poets do, writing in a manner that implies greater truths than the words alone convey. LEAVING CHEYENNE touched my soul. What a gift that is.
Thank you!
Much love,
Brian
LEAVING CHEYENNE is a stunning book that follows three friends from their teenage years to old age/death and Larry McMurtry has created convincing characterizations at each stage. How does one do that? I felt like I experienced three lifetimes in a book that is under 300 pages!
The text picks up in the nineteen teens and ends in the early nineteen sixties. Divided into three parts, each part is told in first person by one of the 3 main characters. Part 1 is the teenaged Gideon Fry, Part 2 is the middle aged Molly Taylor, and Part 3 is from sixty four year old Johnny McCloud. The changing perspectives, and the changing values and thoughts that the different ages bring combine to tell a complete story about all three characters and the very intermingled lives they lead. In each part the voice of the narrator is spot on, truthful to the character, and the reader is immersed completely.
Some highlights:
McMurtry deftly captures the jealously and love that two men feel in a best friendship, oftentimes in the same moment. There is an instance where Gideon is glad that his friend Johnny does not succeed in winning the attentions of a women (Molly) that they both pine for. At the same time he is depressed because Johnny does not succeed. The paradoxical truth the moment conveys is brilliantly done.
Check this out, “And I knew I oughtn’t to say a word: the more I said, the more we would lose. But I loved him, so I fought anyway.” Anyone who has ever been in a real relationship can ponder a long time on a sentence like that. The text is strewn with moments like this. In this instance, Molly is fighting with Gideon, and knows that the fight will cause more problems than it solves, and yet the fight is necessary.
When I finished the novel, I kept staring at the last page. No spoilers, but the awesome power of it is all that it does not say.
LEAVING CHEYENNE was my 6th McMurtry novel. I am so very glad that there are many more on my “to read” pile.
May 31, 2021
My life experiences made this a most rewarding read. As a young man living outside a small town in rural America (Texas in the story, Kansas in real life for me), I could relate to the relationship of these two boys, Gideon and Johnny, who are closer than brothers yet daily squabble and ridicule each other. I had a friend like that, both assuming a position for the sake of argument, to test our ideas and true beliefs. Like these two, we would try to best each other, outwork each other in hard labor, and never talking about girly things. Of course we did, only in the most complex and oblique coded language imaginable. Leaving Cheyenne captures this dialogue so well, revealing a frankly irresolvable conflict, between two friends and the third party, the beautiful Molly Taylor. McMurty’s genius in this novel is the struggle between these three, who all deeply love each other, and stay in a lifelong stalemate of compromise – none able to consummate. There’s plenty of fornication, in fact the boys visit Molly often (separately of course, thankfully!) and she keeps them both in play, though she would have preferred to marry Gid. Throughout this entertaining novel, Gid asks for Molly’s hand, and she nearly, but never, agrees. Instead she marries an inferior, Eddie, to the distress of Gid and Johnny, who are nearly apoplectic with confusion. So Gid marries the second best, which turns out poorly (whiffs of Texasville, another McMurty which was mediocre for me). The story is gold in 3 sections, first by Gid in youth, the middle by Molly in middle age, and the final by Johnny when the “boys” are in their 60s. The later section impressed me, as they feel their ages. At 61, I don’t have to do much physical labor, which I’m thankful for because my entire body of aches and pains and (diagnosed) arthritis is constant. I can understand why lifespans were short back then – when I go to class reunions, I am truly shocked at all the old people. Another friend of mine is still farming, hauling hay, as we did together back in 1977 (he’s holding up better than I physically). Back in the day we were so proud of the fact that two of us could move 1000 bales a day from field to barn. But I digress.
The story begins with Gid struggling with his strong, but failing father arguing about why the ranching life vs the cowboy life. Gid has just spent a ridiculous amount of money on a saddle for Johnny and is chided for such foolishness by his practical dad. This is foreshadowing, and eventually is revealed as a perfect example of pure love. Gid becomes a rancher, expanding his territory after his father shoots himself in the field (with little fanfare, since he was used up) while Johnny roams around and never achieves more than a daily wage earner. Eventually Johnny returns to work for Gid, and they resume their partnership, often with hilarious misdirection in their broken, but well worn, patter of communication. Molly continues to perplex them, and when Eddie falls from a derrick and dies, and Molly struggles with raising two boys (one by Gid, the other by Johnny, yes you read that right!). Tragically, Gid’s boy never bonds with his mother & resents forever when he learns of his true father. Both boys are lost in the second world war, and Molly is alone, out on the ranch, where Gid and Johnny visit and help her out, sometimes staying the night. So they live their life, each one on their own place, in the rough and tumble Texas landscape, at the whim of the weather and wind roaring across the plains.
I really love the first three novels of McMurtry, this is the middle one. The particulars about cattle treatment, behaviors, diseases and the physical landscape was richly detailed. Putting up vegetables and preserves, and the continuous repair of equipment and fencing is Johnny’s life, and Gid keeps up most of the time when he’s not buying more land and can get away from his wife in town. His section told by Molly was a fine device, since it followed the perspective by Gid, and described her views. McMurtry doesn’t explicitly reveal this, but I concluded that Molly refused to marry either because she knew it would break the friendship and destroy both men. Molly is lectured as a “whore” by her own son, and while factually correct it belies the truth that this woman was essentially an orphan and had no parenteral direction. She lived by her own lights, and sadly they all learned to be co-dependent, none achieving their dreams. Johnny was a hard case, never wanting to marry, so one can lay the blame there. But overall this was a classical tragedy, but told beautifully and with wonderful dialogue and remarkable authenticity. One can argue it is also a fable about the end of a way of life in the American west, akin to McCarthy’s trilogy, and I would have to agree.
This book covers a lot, I loved its broad plotlines and deceptively deep insights. But I have one question that I genuinely want an answer for, dear readers: What the hell does the title mean?
The story begins with Gid struggling with his strong, but failing father arguing about why the ranching life vs the cowboy life. Gid has just spent a ridiculous amount of money on a saddle for Johnny and is chided for such foolishness by his practical dad. This is foreshadowing, and eventually is revealed as a perfect example of pure love. Gid becomes a rancher, expanding his territory after his father shoots himself in the field (with little fanfare, since he was used up) while Johnny roams around and never achieves more than a daily wage earner. Eventually Johnny returns to work for Gid, and they resume their partnership, often with hilarious misdirection in their broken, but well worn, patter of communication. Molly continues to perplex them, and when Eddie falls from a derrick and dies, and Molly struggles with raising two boys (one by Gid, the other by Johnny, yes you read that right!). Tragically, Gid’s boy never bonds with his mother & resents forever when he learns of his true father. Both boys are lost in the second world war, and Molly is alone, out on the ranch, where Gid and Johnny visit and help her out, sometimes staying the night. So they live their life, each one on their own place, in the rough and tumble Texas landscape, at the whim of the weather and wind roaring across the plains.
I really love the first three novels of McMurtry, this is the middle one. The particulars about cattle treatment, behaviors, diseases and the physical landscape was richly detailed. Putting up vegetables and preserves, and the continuous repair of equipment and fencing is Johnny’s life, and Gid keeps up most of the time when he’s not buying more land and can get away from his wife in town. His section told by Molly was a fine device, since it followed the perspective by Gid, and described her views. McMurtry doesn’t explicitly reveal this, but I concluded that Molly refused to marry either because she knew it would break the friendship and destroy both men. Molly is lectured as a “whore” by her own son, and while factually correct it belies the truth that this woman was essentially an orphan and had no parenteral direction. She lived by her own lights, and sadly they all learned to be co-dependent, none achieving their dreams. Johnny was a hard case, never wanting to marry, so one can lay the blame there. But overall this was a classical tragedy, but told beautifully and with wonderful dialogue and remarkable authenticity. One can argue it is also a fable about the end of a way of life in the American west, akin to McCarthy’s trilogy, and I would have to agree.
This book covers a lot, I loved its broad plotlines and deceptively deep insights. But I have one question that I genuinely want an answer for, dear readers: What the hell does the title mean?
April 16, 2012
Larry McMurtry grew up among ranchers and cowboys, and his familiarity with this rural world makes his early novels set in and around Thalia, Texas, genuinely alive with rich detail and believable characters. He knows this world as it's seen and understood by the people who live there, both young and old. Most revealingly (and colorfully) he knows how they really talk to each other and to themselves -- not in the stereotypical ways often ascribed to country people.
You read "Leaving Cheyenne" slowly (the reference is to an old cowboy ballad, not the town in Wyoming), savoring the re-creation of real times and places, even when the story itself may move with no great urgency. The insights into characters and the observance of their behavior make them come alive on the page, and you simply enjoy the portrayals of them, their values, beliefs, and experiences.
Part I of this novel is told from the point of view of Gideon, a rancher's son, about 20 years old, around the year 1920. There is his friend Johnny, from a neighboring ranch, and the two of them compete for the affection of Molly, a barefoot, independent-minded girl who willfully and unwisely marries another boy, an oilfield roustabout.
In Part II, it is 20 years later, during WWII, and Molly, now widowed, remains friends with the middle-aged Gideon and Johnny, each of whom happens to have fathered one of her two sons. This part is told from her point of view. Gideon has married another woman (also unwisely) and has become a prosperous rancher, while Johnny works for him, content to be a happy-go-lucky cowboy. Molly lives alone, her sons off to war, and yearns for the company of each of her two old friends and lovers.
In Part III, it is again 20 years later, about 1960 (the novel was published in 1962), and the three characters are now much older. Told from the point of view of Johnny, this section is farcically comical. Meanwhile, Gideon is haunted with guilt for his infidelities with Molly, and Johnny, as he says, has never lost a night's sleep feeling shame for anything he's ever done.
Written in 20-year jumps, the novel gives a sense of how quickly life passes and how people remain the adolescents they once were even as they age. We see that choices made in haste cannot be undone and can leave a life-long legacy of regret. Yet there is also solace in affection, loyalty, and tenderness of heart. The novel celebrates the special quality of friendship among friends who have lived their whole lives together in the same small rural community. And over the years, there is the land -- and working the land -- to ground their rural lives with purpose.
I recommend this novel, along with the author's "Horseman, Pass By," to anyone with an interest in cowboys and ranching. McMurtry captures rural western life and character in rich detail.
You read "Leaving Cheyenne" slowly (the reference is to an old cowboy ballad, not the town in Wyoming), savoring the re-creation of real times and places, even when the story itself may move with no great urgency. The insights into characters and the observance of their behavior make them come alive on the page, and you simply enjoy the portrayals of them, their values, beliefs, and experiences.
Part I of this novel is told from the point of view of Gideon, a rancher's son, about 20 years old, around the year 1920. There is his friend Johnny, from a neighboring ranch, and the two of them compete for the affection of Molly, a barefoot, independent-minded girl who willfully and unwisely marries another boy, an oilfield roustabout.
In Part II, it is 20 years later, during WWII, and Molly, now widowed, remains friends with the middle-aged Gideon and Johnny, each of whom happens to have fathered one of her two sons. This part is told from her point of view. Gideon has married another woman (also unwisely) and has become a prosperous rancher, while Johnny works for him, content to be a happy-go-lucky cowboy. Molly lives alone, her sons off to war, and yearns for the company of each of her two old friends and lovers.
In Part III, it is again 20 years later, about 1960 (the novel was published in 1962), and the three characters are now much older. Told from the point of view of Johnny, this section is farcically comical. Meanwhile, Gideon is haunted with guilt for his infidelities with Molly, and Johnny, as he says, has never lost a night's sleep feeling shame for anything he's ever done.
Written in 20-year jumps, the novel gives a sense of how quickly life passes and how people remain the adolescents they once were even as they age. We see that choices made in haste cannot be undone and can leave a life-long legacy of regret. Yet there is also solace in affection, loyalty, and tenderness of heart. The novel celebrates the special quality of friendship among friends who have lived their whole lives together in the same small rural community. And over the years, there is the land -- and working the land -- to ground their rural lives with purpose.
I recommend this novel, along with the author's "Horseman, Pass By," to anyone with an interest in cowboys and ranching. McMurtry captures rural western life and character in rich detail.
October 31, 2009
_leaving cheyenne_ doesn't beg a rigorous academic analysis, and having just finished it, i'm not in a mood to provide one.
it's just a beautiful, moving novel i literally could not put down in my few non-working moments.
the characters are fully-drawn and mcmurtry inhabits equally their voices and emotions, dedicating each of the novel's three "books" to one of the central characters' perspectives.
this was my first brush with mcmurtry and i can guarantee it will not be my last; i'm told _leaving cheyenne_ isn't even his best.
it's an effortless read and comes with my strongest possible endorsement.
also, if i call you a "no-count sonofabitch," as i have everyone over the last week, you will know why.
it's just a beautiful, moving novel i literally could not put down in my few non-working moments.
the characters are fully-drawn and mcmurtry inhabits equally their voices and emotions, dedicating each of the novel's three "books" to one of the central characters' perspectives.
this was my first brush with mcmurtry and i can guarantee it will not be my last; i'm told _leaving cheyenne_ isn't even his best.
it's an effortless read and comes with my strongest possible endorsement.
also, if i call you a "no-count sonofabitch," as i have everyone over the last week, you will know why.
June 2, 2020
An interesting story concerning the lifelong triangle love affair between one woman and two men. While some of the aspects of the relationships ring true, others do not. The main problem I had was that the story was so laid back that, at times, it almost disappeared. The ending is sad and one wonders why all the bother.
August 27, 2017
I love Larry McMurtry. He can get as sentimental as Charles Dickens does and it never bothers me. This was his second novel. Gideon Fry loves Molly, but so does his best friend Johnny McCloud. Molly loves them both but marries someone else. Meanwhile she sleeps with both of them on the side and bears each one a son.
Gideon, son of a rancher, stands to inherit his father's place. Johnny doesn't like to work for anyone else, styling himself as a free-ranging cowboy, but whenever he is out of money he works on the Fry ranch. He and Gideon have been best friends since they were kids. Molly loves men, loves sex, yet is stuck on her drunk of a father's farm taking care of him.
The story follow these three from birth into their sixties and each has a turn at telling how their lives intertwined. Nothing turns out the way they planned but they are always connected. Each one in various ways is about as lonely as a person can get.
I started the Tales of Texas theme with News of the World and it continues. The state is so big it could probably hold all the stories of the world and so big that possibly everyone in it is lonely to some degree or other. The stories of these three lives in the first half of the 20th century in north Texas, where the work and the heat and the wind and the dust were continuous, where electricity and cars came late, happen in a place where a person could live pretty much by his or her own inclinations. It has a bit of everything; humor, tragedy, friendship, adventure and some of the best conversations you will ever read. Most of all it is about love in all its oddity.
I laughed, I cried, I wanted to take each character and give them a good shaking, but each one would have done what they wanted anyway. I loved each one equally and I think they loved each other equally, so the love triangle could only be broken by death. Somehow the book was good for me, as all of McMurtry's books have been.
May 8, 2025
3.5 stars
March 17, 2019
What really caught my attention was the poem-fragment by Judith Wright that opens the book:
"...Part of my blood's country, rises that tableland ...
Clean, lean, hungry country ...
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country,
Full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep."
Worth tracking down, and perhaps I will (see notes). Miles ahead of the first part, the boy Gideon Fry's story, his girlfriend Molly Taylor, and his friend Johnny, set in the 192os of north Texas, where and when McMurtry and his family grew up. The boy's story is familiar enough, I think I read it before. I'll skip ahead.
OK, Part 2, POV shift to Molly, the woman in the middle. I never quite believed in her, but there are lots of old stories of how odd the early settlers got, and she's just one generation past that. This is, after all, just McM's 2nd novel. He would get better at this. Weak 3 stars to here.
What redeems the book is part 3, another POV shift to Johnny, but it's basically Johnny & Gid, when Johnny is 60 and they're both feeling their age. There's a hilarious incident involving Gid's driving skills, a demolished fence, the neighbor's goats sense Freedom! -- well, this scene alone makes the book worth reading. Rural slapstick gets no better. Helpless laughter! And the sad ending made me tear up. Poor old Gid sure never learned how to slow down and enjoy life.
So I recommend the book to McMurtry fans who who are willing to cut him some slack for what was still apprentice work. Them goats repaid my time. Plus, it's short. Overall, a weak 4 stars.
My 8-2004 booklog says "A, near-great, love triangle in Thalia to old age & death. Very cool." and marks it as a re-read. I don't know when I first read the book. It looks like this is my 2nd most reread McM novel, after Lonesome Dove. Which surprised me.
"...Part of my blood's country, rises that tableland ...
Clean, lean, hungry country ...
I know it dark against the stars, the high lean country,
Full of old stories that still go walking in my sleep."
Worth tracking down, and perhaps I will (see notes). Miles ahead of the first part, the boy Gideon Fry's story, his girlfriend Molly Taylor, and his friend Johnny, set in the 192os of north Texas, where and when McMurtry and his family grew up. The boy's story is familiar enough, I think I read it before. I'll skip ahead.
OK, Part 2, POV shift to Molly, the woman in the middle. I never quite believed in her, but there are lots of old stories of how odd the early settlers got, and she's just one generation past that. This is, after all, just McM's 2nd novel. He would get better at this. Weak 3 stars to here.
What redeems the book is part 3, another POV shift to Johnny, but it's basically Johnny & Gid, when Johnny is 60 and they're both feeling their age. There's a hilarious incident involving Gid's driving skills, a demolished fence, the neighbor's goats sense Freedom! -- well, this scene alone makes the book worth reading. Rural slapstick gets no better. Helpless laughter! And the sad ending made me tear up. Poor old Gid sure never learned how to slow down and enjoy life.
So I recommend the book to McMurtry fans who who are willing to cut him some slack for what was still apprentice work. Them goats repaid my time. Plus, it's short. Overall, a weak 4 stars.
My 8-2004 booklog says "A, near-great, love triangle in Thalia to old age & death. Very cool." and marks it as a re-read. I don't know when I first read the book. It looks like this is my 2nd most reread McM novel, after Lonesome Dove. Which surprised me.
April 29, 2018
I read this the first time when I was 25, in a room with no furniture, straight through. I bawled like a baby. Now, 32 years later, it still makes me cry. But at 25, I had no idea how well McMurtry captures the nostalgia we age into, as well as how much of our young selves are still there within us. I can see my friends and husband and myself back at 20 as clearly as Johnny pictures Mary on the last page. Just heartbreaking, but in a good way. I've read this probably 5 times over the years, but I can't read it too much because, ouch!
May 7, 2018
I guess I didn't know what to expect going into this one. The description called it a coming-of-age story, and I guess it was ... but the age turned into old age and there never was really a defining moment in the lives of the three protagonists. They just grew up, lived their pretty ordinary lives, then died.
The first part of the book is told from Gideon's point of view and it was mildly entertaining. The second part is told from Molly's point of view and the book almost completely lost me here. It was so incredibly booorrrrrrring! The third part is told by Johnny, and it was actually my favorite part, though I think that had to do more with the narrator than the story.
The book isn't really a Western, either. Yeah, Johnny is a cowboy in the beginning, but since the story goes through the 1960s, with the last character dying in the 1980s, it isn't what most folks would consider a horse opera.
Did I hate it? No. Will I ever read it again? No. Should you read it? Eh.
The first part of the book is told from Gideon's point of view and it was mildly entertaining. The second part is told from Molly's point of view and the book almost completely lost me here. It was so incredibly booorrrrrrring! The third part is told by Johnny, and it was actually my favorite part, though I think that had to do more with the narrator than the story.
The book isn't really a Western, either. Yeah, Johnny is a cowboy in the beginning, but since the story goes through the 1960s, with the last character dying in the 1980s, it isn't what most folks would consider a horse opera.
Did I hate it? No. Will I ever read it again? No. Should you read it? Eh.
March 10, 2022
What I love about McMurtry is how unassuming the writing is. At first glance it's maddeningly simplistic, formatted storytelling. After a while, characters start to come alive and suddenly a description or a piece of dialogue flips you sideways and the book becomes incredibly thoughtful and profound all in a moment's notice. It's vanilla ice cream with tiny pieces of rich, dark chocolate haha. It was exactly what I loved about Lonesome Dove.
It's a light, wholesome read about love, life and Texas cowboys. Would recommend for anyone who needs more Yee-haw in their reading routine.
It's a light, wholesome read about love, life and Texas cowboys. Would recommend for anyone who needs more Yee-haw in their reading routine.
October 13, 2021
Was there a plot? I now know what it would be like to experience a love triangle in the Texas/Oklahoma area in the early-mid 20th century. Big fan of McMurtury, but this certainly didn’t cut it. For me at least.
August 2, 2013
I read this at least once a year. It may be my favorite book. Written in 3 sections, each from one of the main character's viewpoints, the story is original and heartbreaking just like life.
October 13, 2018
This story is a home run for readers that like character development and an authentic storyline. McMurtry takes common occurrences and weaves a tale of uncommon interest.
January 9, 2014
Larry McMurtry is one of my favourite authors. Leaving Cheyenne
did not disappoint. This one of McMurtry's earlier works, before he wrote the wonderful
Lonesome Dove, which I count among my all-time favourite novels. In fact, Gid and Johnny could be thought of as earlier, less fleshed out versions of Gus and Call. This book is so many things-a coming of age story, an unusual love triangle and romance, and a close-up look at the friendship between two very different men. Gid and Johnny share a great love of nature, the Texan wilderness, and a dislike for non-country living and culture, but frequently disagree as to how each should live his life. McMurtry can put you in the pasture, make you feel the heat as Gid and Johnny strain to dig new fence posts or fix a windmill in the blazing heat of summer. Frequently, I will stop reading, simply to marvel at the pictures he has painted in my mind. I finished this book in one day, and reluctantly turned the last few pages, guessing how it would end- with a lump in my throat and a sadness that this was one more McMurtry piece that I would never enjoy for the first time again. I will return to it another day, as I do with the Lonesome Dove trilogy, when I need to visit the land of great storytelling, where I am guaranteed to laugh and cry in equal measure.
did not disappoint. This one of McMurtry's earlier works, before he wrote the wonderful
Lonesome Dove, which I count among my all-time favourite novels. In fact, Gid and Johnny could be thought of as earlier, less fleshed out versions of Gus and Call. This book is so many things-a coming of age story, an unusual love triangle and romance, and a close-up look at the friendship between two very different men. Gid and Johnny share a great love of nature, the Texan wilderness, and a dislike for non-country living and culture, but frequently disagree as to how each should live his life. McMurtry can put you in the pasture, make you feel the heat as Gid and Johnny strain to dig new fence posts or fix a windmill in the blazing heat of summer. Frequently, I will stop reading, simply to marvel at the pictures he has painted in my mind. I finished this book in one day, and reluctantly turned the last few pages, guessing how it would end- with a lump in my throat and a sadness that this was one more McMurtry piece that I would never enjoy for the first time again. I will return to it another day, as I do with the Lonesome Dove trilogy, when I need to visit the land of great storytelling, where I am guaranteed to laugh and cry in equal measure. 
August 15, 2023
I knew that Larry McMurtry would end my three-month-long streak of disappointing fiction. I found Leaving Cheyenne difficult to put down. Though it is not as plot-driven as my all time favorite, Lonesome Dove, you can definitely see the seeds of Gus and Call here, which I loved. I was really touched by these characters and captivated by the strange and moving love triangle that forms the foundation of this novel. Really beautiful, unpretentious writing.
January 19, 2015
I never guessed I would be such a fan of Larry McMurtry books. The characters are robust and charming and old Texas is a marvelous place for a plot.
October 14, 2022
Leaving Cheyenne, McMurtry’s second book, is where he starts to earn his reputation for poignant, insightful portraits of Texas youths. He was young when he wrote it, but he was already able to handle the book’s three perspectives (and passing of huge stretches of time) with grace. It’s about a love triangle and, true to form, Molly, the woman in the triangle, is the most complex and dimensional of the three. The book covers the time from when the three are roughly 20 to the time when they’re in their 60s, and each section is poignant in its own way. The first part feels like a more successful rewrite of what McMurtry tried to do in the coming of age story Horseman, Pass By; the second section captures the uncertainty of middle age; the third and final section is a portrait of the habits and heartbreaks of old age. It’s both the funniest and saddest section. The whole thing is beautiful, funny, and warm. What a great book.
October 20, 2020
The author chronicles the life of several people living out their lives on the Texas plains. Kind of a strange story of love and loss, set against McMurtry's favorite background of the wild West. I found the narrative to be very lively and the characters were very believable. By reading McMurtry's early work, you can see these books as the stepping stones he used to build up to his magnus opus, Lonesome Dove. A very worthy effort.
November 2, 2024
McMurtry is probably the silent great of American letters despite his popular success. There are very few writers who can write about the human heart the way he can.
January 10, 2023
Plus tendre mais tout aussi mélancolique que Lonesome Dove. C'est une histoire d'amour et d'amitié, de liens indéfectibles et de vies qui passent. Un roman lumineux, triste et doux.
January 16, 2021
.
Leaving Cheyenne
by Larry McMurtry, first pub. 1962, over 300 pages.
OVERVIEW: "[McMurtry's]...second novel about love and loss on the great plains of Texas. From 1920’s ranching to range cowboys and WWII grief [and concluding in the early 1960s], McMurtry is the undisputed father of the Western literary epic.
Leaving Cheyenne traces the loves of three West Texas characters as they follow that sundown trail: Gideon Fry [aka "Gid"], the serious rancher; Johnny McCloud, the free-spirited cowhand; and Molly Taylor, the sensitive woman they both love and who bears them each a son [Jimmy & Joe]. Told...[from 3 different] perspectives over...[a period of about 40] years...[and] follows their dreams, secrets, and grief against a changing American landscape."
The time frame mostly covers the 40 years from 1922 to 1962 and the 3 main characters are in their twenties to start and end up in there sixties.
.
As the tale begins Gid is narrating, telling his story. Gid & his pal Johnny are both vying for Molly's attention and love. At this point we're not told the age of these 3 compadres, but they act like teenagers. Actually they're out of school and are supposed to be twenty-somethings. Gid is employed and well paid by his rancher dad and he's suppose to be learning all the tasks of ranching so he can take it over one day. Dad insists that all jobs are important on the road to wealth, to not being poor or mediocre.
Johnny's family is mostly mediocre, but he does still have his mother, unlike Gideon. Johnny considers himself a cowboy and he's a good one. Farm work, harvesting "oatschock," working as a "clodhopper" are beneath Johnny. Gid also does not enjoy eating dust behind the plow mule, but he mostly does the jobs assigned him. To do some real cowboying, Johnny heads north into the Texas Panhandle to work on one of the big ranches up there. With Johnny away it's a good opportunity for courting the raven-haired beauty, Molly.
There's also a bit of a mystery. A while ago, with Johnny's help, Gideon had disappeared for a couple of months to a Kansas hospital for unspecified reasons. In thanks Gid had a pricey saddle made for his pal. Dad mentions that it's a finer saddle then any he's ever owned. Later we learn the problem involved a brothal and Gid getting cured.
That vagueness is the way the author presents most scenes involving intimacy and trysts--even a visit to a house of ill repute. One example: Molly kisses Gid in her bedroom and says, "don't you say another word tonight." In the very next scene Gid awakes in the morning expecting to find his dad telling him to get up. "But there was just Molly; she was lovely." That's it, that's typical for a "spicy" segment. In his later works author McMurtry started writing much more explicit scenes.
On a wonderful date with Molly, fishing and lounging in the grass under the shade trees, Gid proposes marriage. Unfortunately Molly has no intention of getting married to anyone. If she ended up having a baby she might have to get married, but she makes it clear she wouldn't want to. "...I ain't going to marry, I mean it. I'll do anything you want me to but that. I'll do everything else if you want..." Gid has his heart set on Molly as his wife and declines the offer of "everything else." Much later he regrets that decision, knowing that Johnny wouldn't have thought twice about it, he would have just done it.
The pals can't figure out what Molly sees in that shiftless, oilpatch roughneck named Eddie White. And Molly tells Gid she won't be going to anymore holiday dances with him since she just promised them all to Eddie (What? Is she crazy?). Both Molly and Gid's fathers end up killing themselves: her drunken dad drank a bottle of poison by mistake, but Mr. Fry's ailment kept getting worse so he ended it with the rifle. That left Molly living alone on the family farm which borders the Fry's ranch and Gideon Fry is also alone, the sole owner-occupant of his 10,000 acre ranch.
Then Molly, loved and doted on by Gid and she very affectionate in return, unbelievably up and marries Eddie without a word to anyone (Yeh, she's crazy). Gid of course is devastated. He "wasn't no solitary owl" and being especially lonely, Gid decides he may as well propose to Mabel Peters who's often asked him to marry her. They've always gotten along and Mabel is the "best girl left in the county." Once they're married Gid thinks he made a mistake, she's bossy, they're not in love, but he trys to get along.
Eventually Gid does pay Molly a visit (Eddie's away at the oil fields as usual). She tells Gid she's ready for a baby and wants him as the daddy. She convinces Gid all she wants is his love, "just you loving me...And nothing else." As for Eddie she says, "He ain't the married kind" (he's not a homebody) and she doesn't believe he'd be a good dad. And so begins Gid and Molly's weekly affair and keeping their spouses in the dark. Before long Molly's preggers. Gid doesn't believe in divorce, so when Molly eventually offers to marry him, if he'll just dump Mabel, he won't do it. Their affair continues--Gid suffering with a guilt-ridden conscience.
Johnny is back in the area and Gid hires his pal to help work the ranch and live in the bunkhouse. Gid is expanding the ranch and has just purchased 3 more sections to the Northwest.
.
Part II, about 20 years later, is Molly's story and she's now age 43. Her 2 sons, Jimmy fathered by Gid (now age 47) and Joe the daring son of Johnny (45), are both grown and serving in the war. Joe had been with a bomber crew in England and is MIA, likely dead. Jim was sent to the Pacific theater of WWII. Eddie is no longer in the picture, Molly a widow does not plan to remarry. Johnny never married, he's a confirmed bachelor, but does plenty of "courting." Mabel and Gid have a daughter Sarah and have moved into a fine house they built in town.
Molly gives the details of her rural isolated life, raised by a drunk and the only one of his kids who didn't runoff. She felt sorry for her pathetic father and stayed on the farm to take care of him. Then she took up with the hostile misogynist Eddie White who was not unlike her own daddy. She was quite fond of Johnny, but he wasn't the marrying type and Gid treated her better than anyone, but she went ahead and married the one who often threatened and mistreated her.
When her sons were adolescents Molly told them who their real fathers were and about her ongoing dalliance with both of them. Jimmy, 13 at the time, was involved with church Sunday school and he turned hateful, ashamed over her adultery and fornication. Some how Jimmy's church failed to teach him about “Honor your father and mother," instead he spent years being cruel to his parents and never called her mom again. After Jim went off to war he sent Molly a letter saying he wasn't ever returning, no longer had religion and now preferred men. She never showed Gid the letter and later burned it. Now another letter (maybe from the army) informing her of Jimmy's death.
After the death of his son (Jim), Gid is determined to be a good example to his young daughter and informs Molly he's quitting the infidelity. She implores him to stay as her lover since he's her mainstay and Gid demands to know: "Then why did you marry that sorry bastard...It just about ruined my life." Having thought about it for days Molly decides she doesn't really know. Gid is true to his word. He most likely still wants Molly (the love of his life), but now remains faithful in his marriage to cantankerous Mabel.
Part III is 1962, another 20 years or so have past, and Johnny picks up the tale from here. He still seems to be Gid's only employee, doing all the regular maintenance required for a cattle ranch of well over 10,000 acres. No idea if that's actually possible with just one guy. At one point the two old codgers are putting up fencing and Gid suggests hiring a couple of day laborers to help, especially since Gid is still recouping from surgery. Just like his father, Gid rejects the notion of other hired hands. "I never asked for no advice," he said. "I guess I know when I'm able to work and when I'm not."
Molly has lived alone on her family's farm her whole life, a bit of a recluse. She goes to town for supplies, but visitors seem to be mostly Gid or Johnny. She has some milk cows, horses, chickens, a garden etc, but I'm not sure the story ever mentioned what she actually does for a living, for money.
This final section of the story starts with the two aging cattleman (Gid & Johnny) engaged in some mishaps which exemplify their waning talents and increasing age. Driving, Gid takes out the neighbors fence and Johnny's truck rolls away, having not set the brake. Goats try to escape the pasture through this new breach in the fencing. They try valiantly to drive the goats back, but they're useless at stopping them--one of the few LOL moments in the story. At Molly's they agree to locate her cow that wanders off at times--they're both cowboys after all. The cow takes off running, they pursue on horseback and suffer in the sticker bushes, but they do rope her. Unfortunately the poor thing suffers some injuries while being roped and pulled by the plowhorse and has to be put down.
Gid is scheduled for "routine" surgery, plus there are complications. He's still recouping in the Hospital when he decides he's had enough and Johnny helps him escape. Gid can't go home since Mabel and her politician brother would likely send him right back, so Johnny takes him to Molly's farm where she's delighted to have some one to care for. After a week or so he is not good as new, but insists on getting back to work. He and Johnny start on the fence, but Gid is easily exhausted. Eventually he's able to work all day again and sets out to repair the windwill. No, he doesn't fall to his death. There's something going on with Gid, he fell and is addled, but it's a blood clot that kills him.
After the funeral and reading of the will Johnny inherits plenty of land to add to the acres he already inherited from his own father. Of course Mabel fired him from the ranch job; she never liked him. And it's unknow who Mabel and her brother will get to run the ranch. Johnny will move back to his family's land just a few miles away.
The last page is of:
"Three Gravestones"
"Gideon Fry
1896 to 1962
Molly Taylor White
1900 to 1976
Johnny McCloud
1898 to 1985"
The End
.
Mostly an enjoyable story, even with the promoting of a flexable morality.
"...caring about a person made a difference in what was right and wrong... The churches say it's wrong. The law says it's wrong. And I've always believed it was wrong--except when we did it."
Some segments tend to be dull, but not many. There are some words and dialogue used to reflect that time and place in Northern Texas, now about 100 years ago (1922 and following).
“Whyn’t you shoot that pore old mule and put him out of his misery?”
“Shoot dis mule? ...Den how’d I get aroun’?”
"...and the killdees and bullbats were swooping down over the water."
The author seems to like naming characters Old "something." There's Old Denver the horse and the oldest horse is Old Dirtdobber, some of the men include Old Man Berdeau, Old Man Peters, Old Man Ashtoe who fired cowboy Johnny and Old Man Taylor is Molly's dad who is "a sly old bastard" and "a fragrant old bastard." And many more.
..
The Thalia 3 book series are all set in the north Texas town of Thalia after World War II.
1. Horseman, Pass By – 1961 (The film is titled Hud).
2. ● Leaving Cheyenne – 1962 (The film is Lovin' Molly).
3. The Last Picture Show – 1966.
The Duane Moore 5 book series are also all set in Thalia and cover Duane's life from High School thru old age.
The Last Picture Show – 1966
Texasville – 1987
Duane's Depressed - 1999
When The Light Goes - 2007
Rhino Ranch -2009
.
Leaving Cheyenne
by Larry McMurtry, first pub. 1962, over 300 pages.
OVERVIEW: "[McMurtry's]...second novel about love and loss on the great plains of Texas. From 1920’s ranching to range cowboys and WWII grief [and concluding in the early 1960s], McMurtry is the undisputed father of the Western literary epic.
Leaving Cheyenne traces the loves of three West Texas characters as they follow that sundown trail: Gideon Fry [aka "Gid"], the serious rancher; Johnny McCloud, the free-spirited cowhand; and Molly Taylor, the sensitive woman they both love and who bears them each a son [Jimmy & Joe]. Told...[from 3 different] perspectives over...[a period of about 40] years...[and] follows their dreams, secrets, and grief against a changing American landscape."
The time frame mostly covers the 40 years from 1922 to 1962 and the 3 main characters are in their twenties to start and end up in there sixties.
.
As the tale begins Gid is narrating, telling his story. Gid & his pal Johnny are both vying for Molly's attention and love. At this point we're not told the age of these 3 compadres, but they act like teenagers. Actually they're out of school and are supposed to be twenty-somethings. Gid is employed and well paid by his rancher dad and he's suppose to be learning all the tasks of ranching so he can take it over one day. Dad insists that all jobs are important on the road to wealth, to not being poor or mediocre.
Johnny's family is mostly mediocre, but he does still have his mother, unlike Gideon. Johnny considers himself a cowboy and he's a good one. Farm work, harvesting "oatschock," working as a "clodhopper" are beneath Johnny. Gid also does not enjoy eating dust behind the plow mule, but he mostly does the jobs assigned him. To do some real cowboying, Johnny heads north into the Texas Panhandle to work on one of the big ranches up there. With Johnny away it's a good opportunity for courting the raven-haired beauty, Molly.
There's also a bit of a mystery. A while ago, with Johnny's help, Gideon had disappeared for a couple of months to a Kansas hospital for unspecified reasons. In thanks Gid had a pricey saddle made for his pal. Dad mentions that it's a finer saddle then any he's ever owned. Later we learn the problem involved a brothal and Gid getting cured.
That vagueness is the way the author presents most scenes involving intimacy and trysts--even a visit to a house of ill repute. One example: Molly kisses Gid in her bedroom and says, "don't you say another word tonight." In the very next scene Gid awakes in the morning expecting to find his dad telling him to get up. "But there was just Molly; she was lovely." That's it, that's typical for a "spicy" segment. In his later works author McMurtry started writing much more explicit scenes.
On a wonderful date with Molly, fishing and lounging in the grass under the shade trees, Gid proposes marriage. Unfortunately Molly has no intention of getting married to anyone. If she ended up having a baby she might have to get married, but she makes it clear she wouldn't want to. "...I ain't going to marry, I mean it. I'll do anything you want me to but that. I'll do everything else if you want..." Gid has his heart set on Molly as his wife and declines the offer of "everything else." Much later he regrets that decision, knowing that Johnny wouldn't have thought twice about it, he would have just done it.
The pals can't figure out what Molly sees in that shiftless, oilpatch roughneck named Eddie White. And Molly tells Gid she won't be going to anymore holiday dances with him since she just promised them all to Eddie (What? Is she crazy?). Both Molly and Gid's fathers end up killing themselves: her drunken dad drank a bottle of poison by mistake, but Mr. Fry's ailment kept getting worse so he ended it with the rifle. That left Molly living alone on the family farm which borders the Fry's ranch and Gideon Fry is also alone, the sole owner-occupant of his 10,000 acre ranch.
Then Molly, loved and doted on by Gid and she very affectionate in return, unbelievably up and marries Eddie without a word to anyone (Yeh, she's crazy). Gid of course is devastated. He "wasn't no solitary owl" and being especially lonely, Gid decides he may as well propose to Mabel Peters who's often asked him to marry her. They've always gotten along and Mabel is the "best girl left in the county." Once they're married Gid thinks he made a mistake, she's bossy, they're not in love, but he trys to get along.
Eventually Gid does pay Molly a visit (Eddie's away at the oil fields as usual). She tells Gid she's ready for a baby and wants him as the daddy. She convinces Gid all she wants is his love, "just you loving me...And nothing else." As for Eddie she says, "He ain't the married kind" (he's not a homebody) and she doesn't believe he'd be a good dad. And so begins Gid and Molly's weekly affair and keeping their spouses in the dark. Before long Molly's preggers. Gid doesn't believe in divorce, so when Molly eventually offers to marry him, if he'll just dump Mabel, he won't do it. Their affair continues--Gid suffering with a guilt-ridden conscience.
Johnny is back in the area and Gid hires his pal to help work the ranch and live in the bunkhouse. Gid is expanding the ranch and has just purchased 3 more sections to the Northwest.
.
Part II, about 20 years later, is Molly's story and she's now age 43. Her 2 sons, Jimmy fathered by Gid (now age 47) and Joe the daring son of Johnny (45), are both grown and serving in the war. Joe had been with a bomber crew in England and is MIA, likely dead. Jim was sent to the Pacific theater of WWII. Eddie is no longer in the picture, Molly a widow does not plan to remarry. Johnny never married, he's a confirmed bachelor, but does plenty of "courting." Mabel and Gid have a daughter Sarah and have moved into a fine house they built in town.
Molly gives the details of her rural isolated life, raised by a drunk and the only one of his kids who didn't runoff. She felt sorry for her pathetic father and stayed on the farm to take care of him. Then she took up with the hostile misogynist Eddie White who was not unlike her own daddy. She was quite fond of Johnny, but he wasn't the marrying type and Gid treated her better than anyone, but she went ahead and married the one who often threatened and mistreated her.
When her sons were adolescents Molly told them who their real fathers were and about her ongoing dalliance with both of them. Jimmy, 13 at the time, was involved with church Sunday school and he turned hateful, ashamed over her adultery and fornication. Some how Jimmy's church failed to teach him about “Honor your father and mother," instead he spent years being cruel to his parents and never called her mom again. After Jim went off to war he sent Molly a letter saying he wasn't ever returning, no longer had religion and now preferred men. She never showed Gid the letter and later burned it. Now another letter (maybe from the army) informing her of Jimmy's death.
After the death of his son (Jim), Gid is determined to be a good example to his young daughter and informs Molly he's quitting the infidelity. She implores him to stay as her lover since he's her mainstay and Gid demands to know: "Then why did you marry that sorry bastard...It just about ruined my life." Having thought about it for days Molly decides she doesn't really know. Gid is true to his word. He most likely still wants Molly (the love of his life), but now remains faithful in his marriage to cantankerous Mabel.
Part III is 1962, another 20 years or so have past, and Johnny picks up the tale from here. He still seems to be Gid's only employee, doing all the regular maintenance required for a cattle ranch of well over 10,000 acres. No idea if that's actually possible with just one guy. At one point the two old codgers are putting up fencing and Gid suggests hiring a couple of day laborers to help, especially since Gid is still recouping from surgery. Just like his father, Gid rejects the notion of other hired hands. "I never asked for no advice," he said. "I guess I know when I'm able to work and when I'm not."
Molly has lived alone on her family's farm her whole life, a bit of a recluse. She goes to town for supplies, but visitors seem to be mostly Gid or Johnny. She has some milk cows, horses, chickens, a garden etc, but I'm not sure the story ever mentioned what she actually does for a living, for money.
This final section of the story starts with the two aging cattleman (Gid & Johnny) engaged in some mishaps which exemplify their waning talents and increasing age. Driving, Gid takes out the neighbors fence and Johnny's truck rolls away, having not set the brake. Goats try to escape the pasture through this new breach in the fencing. They try valiantly to drive the goats back, but they're useless at stopping them--one of the few LOL moments in the story. At Molly's they agree to locate her cow that wanders off at times--they're both cowboys after all. The cow takes off running, they pursue on horseback and suffer in the sticker bushes, but they do rope her. Unfortunately the poor thing suffers some injuries while being roped and pulled by the plowhorse and has to be put down.
Gid is scheduled for "routine" surgery, plus there are complications. He's still recouping in the Hospital when he decides he's had enough and Johnny helps him escape. Gid can't go home since Mabel and her politician brother would likely send him right back, so Johnny takes him to Molly's farm where she's delighted to have some one to care for. After a week or so he is not good as new, but insists on getting back to work. He and Johnny start on the fence, but Gid is easily exhausted. Eventually he's able to work all day again and sets out to repair the windwill. No, he doesn't fall to his death. There's something going on with Gid, he fell and is addled, but it's a blood clot that kills him.
After the funeral and reading of the will Johnny inherits plenty of land to add to the acres he already inherited from his own father. Of course Mabel fired him from the ranch job; she never liked him. And it's unknow who Mabel and her brother will get to run the ranch. Johnny will move back to his family's land just a few miles away.
The last page is of:
"Three Gravestones"
"Gideon Fry
1896 to 1962
Molly Taylor White
1900 to 1976
Johnny McCloud
1898 to 1985"
The End
.
Mostly an enjoyable story, even with the promoting of a flexable morality.
"...caring about a person made a difference in what was right and wrong... The churches say it's wrong. The law says it's wrong. And I've always believed it was wrong--except when we did it."
Some segments tend to be dull, but not many. There are some words and dialogue used to reflect that time and place in Northern Texas, now about 100 years ago (1922 and following).
“Whyn’t you shoot that pore old mule and put him out of his misery?”
“Shoot dis mule? ...Den how’d I get aroun’?”
"...and the killdees and bullbats were swooping down over the water."
The author seems to like naming characters Old "something." There's Old Denver the horse and the oldest horse is Old Dirtdobber, some of the men include Old Man Berdeau, Old Man Peters, Old Man Ashtoe who fired cowboy Johnny and Old Man Taylor is Molly's dad who is "a sly old bastard" and "a fragrant old bastard." And many more.
..
The Thalia 3 book series are all set in the north Texas town of Thalia after World War II.
1. Horseman, Pass By – 1961 (The film is titled Hud).
2. ● Leaving Cheyenne – 1962 (The film is Lovin' Molly).
3. The Last Picture Show – 1966.
The Duane Moore 5 book series are also all set in Thalia and cover Duane's life from High School thru old age.
The Last Picture Show – 1966
Texasville – 1987
Duane's Depressed - 1999
When The Light Goes - 2007
Rhino Ranch -2009
.
February 12, 2009
This is a pretty good book that almost makes it into the four star category, if it weren't for a kind of niggling thought in my mind that the three main characters, though all likable, seem as if they were painted with a brush that was a little too broad. It's the story of three people, two men and a woman, and the love triangle between them. There are three sections to the novel, and each is told from the point of view of each of the three main characters. Each section is at a different point in time, so the novel actually ends up encompassing the lifetimes of these three characters.
The first section, told from the point of view of one of the men, was fun but a little silly. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep reading the novel at some points in it. The second section, however, was quite a surprise. Told from the point of view of the female character, this section redefines what's happened so far in an intriguing, almost philosophical way. It deepens the events that have occurred already, and raises some interesting questions about marriage, love, children, and consequences. The third section somewhat continues these themes, but in a less pointed way.
Without the middle section, this book would have been a simplistic, entertaining read. The first and the third sections are still pretty much that way. However, the middle section informs the simplicity, and comments on it, and in the end makes it mean more than you would think.
The first section, told from the point of view of one of the men, was fun but a little silly. I wasn't sure if I was going to keep reading the novel at some points in it. The second section, however, was quite a surprise. Told from the point of view of the female character, this section redefines what's happened so far in an intriguing, almost philosophical way. It deepens the events that have occurred already, and raises some interesting questions about marriage, love, children, and consequences. The third section somewhat continues these themes, but in a less pointed way.
Without the middle section, this book would have been a simplistic, entertaining read. The first and the third sections are still pretty much that way. However, the middle section informs the simplicity, and comments on it, and in the end makes it mean more than you would think.
December 29, 2021
This is the first time ever that I watched a movie before reading the book. Well that is because
"Loving Molly" came out in 1974 I was 15 years old. It was a movie about a girl named Molly who meets two boys as a kid. Johnny is a cowboy, Gideon is a rancher. She has a 40 year relationship with both boys. She ends up having a child with each man. Both boys end up in the service. One hates Molly because he was the product of what they called sin in those days. The other one doesn't care he was the product of an affair. But that dose not make any of their relationships turn out any better. Id call it bittersweet.
Flash forward to 2021. My nephew tells me "you should read this book ". "Leaving Cheyenne", by Larry McMurtry. Ok I said. I read the blurb and thought oh this sounds good. So I read it. I keep thinking this sounds a lot like a movie I once watched. I looked it up. Sure enough they were one in the same.
I liked the book much better because it gave more light to certain aspects that you didn't get to know about in the movie. As you know, Larry McMurtry always has a bit of a sad angsty flow to his westerns and novels. But in this book, Molly kind of makes up for it because she is feisty. More a modern type thinker for that day and age. Larry McMurtry never gets a cowboy or rancher wrong. He done nailed it.
back in those days.
"Loving Molly" came out in 1974 I was 15 years old. It was a movie about a girl named Molly who meets two boys as a kid. Johnny is a cowboy, Gideon is a rancher. She has a 40 year relationship with both boys. She ends up having a child with each man. Both boys end up in the service. One hates Molly because he was the product of what they called sin in those days. The other one doesn't care he was the product of an affair. But that dose not make any of their relationships turn out any better. Id call it bittersweet.
Flash forward to 2021. My nephew tells me "you should read this book ". "Leaving Cheyenne", by Larry McMurtry. Ok I said. I read the blurb and thought oh this sounds good. So I read it. I keep thinking this sounds a lot like a movie I once watched. I looked it up. Sure enough they were one in the same.
I liked the book much better because it gave more light to certain aspects that you didn't get to know about in the movie. As you know, Larry McMurtry always has a bit of a sad angsty flow to his westerns and novels. But in this book, Molly kind of makes up for it because she is feisty. More a modern type thinker for that day and age. Larry McMurtry never gets a cowboy or rancher wrong. He done nailed it.
back in those days.
March 30, 2012
Larry McMurtry is one of my two or three favorite authors. I've read everything he's written since Lonesome Dove and have now gone back to read some of his earlier work. As one might expect, he has refined his craft as he's gone along. Don't get me wrong, this book was good, but it did not have the breadth of scope of much of his later work. Actually, it is easy to see this book as a presurser to Lonesome Dove in some respects. The main male characters, Gid and Johnny can easily be seen as prototypes for Woodrow and Gus and Molly as an amalgam of the female characters in the later book. I'm glad I found this one - a nice read.
December 15, 2010
this book leaves me with no desire to read lonesome dove, even though heaps of folks think it is one of the best books ever. i think it is because i do not like mcmurtry's style; what some people regard as a lack of sentimentality i think of as being emotionally disengaged. i spent most of the novel being perplexed by the main characters' motivations, rendering me completely unable to relate to them in any meaningful way. which is probably why i just didn't care about the characters, or for the book at all.
January 23, 2025
Challengers coded. Surprised to see that McMurty was in his 20s when he wrote this. Even that early on, he had a preternatural ability to convey a more aged sense of longing. His ruminations on regret, time passed, and opportunities lost is a recurring theme of all his work.
March 1, 2024
One of the early McMurtry books. Can see how the two main male characters are the ancestors to how Woodrow & Gus interact in Lonesome Dove.
January 10, 2025
This is one of the best books I’ve ever read and it meant a lot to me. I hope I will read it again soon
May 24, 2020
I really liked this book
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