Larry McMurtry, R.I.P.
Larry McMurtry died on March 25th at the age of 84. An extraordinary writer, he was arguably the best American novelist of the 20th century. He took exquisite care with observation, word choice, and character development. His books about the American West will influence us for years to come.
Of his more than thirty novels, Lonesome Dove will continue to be his greatest legacy. Over 900 pages in paperback, he started writing it in 1975. He finished it ten years later. It is perhaps the greatest American novel of the 20th century. In a 2013 interview with the Texas Monthly, he observed that he attempted to demythologize the West with Lonesome Dove, but instead his book became the main source of western mythology. He said in the interview: "I actually think of 'Lonesome Dove' as the 'Gone With the Wind' of the West."
