Monday, February 14, 2022

Larry McMurtry - an underappreciated wordsmith

 I just finished my fifth Larry McMurtry novel, "The Last Picture Show," and am able to confidently say he is the best writer among the clan of authors I've fallen in with. (Never end a sentence with a preposition, but you can with two.) Those more famous authors include Dean Koontz, James Patterson, Lawrence Block, Lee Child, John Sandford, Daniel Silva.

Sure, some of them have better imaginations or plot twists or stumbled into a character they made a career out of (Lucas Davenport, Gabriel Allon, Jack Reacher, etc.) But when it comes to getting into the guts of a character so you feel what they feel, see what they see, I haven't run across anyone better. It can be salty. There is profanity, racism, N words, raunchy sex, lives lived and loves lost. But it's life, particularly in the plains of Texas, and he makes you feel it to the bone.

The characters he created were so good, they often ended up on screen, like "Lonesome Dove" and "Brokeback Mountain." The characters were so deep they attracted A-list actors like: Paul Newman, Jack Nicholson, Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd. 

When I Wiki'd him, I was distressed to learn he died last year. This New York Times obituary is worth the read just to see his quirky life and his other career as a book collector and seller. 

He wrote 30 novels, so I have plenty more to go and look forward to them.

I gave "The Last Picture Show" a stellar 8 on the Haugenometer. 

No comments:

Post a Comment