Lonesome Dove

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Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove is poetry.

“The eastern sky was red as coals in a forge, lighting up the flats along the river. Dew had wet the million needles of the chaparral, and when the rim of the sun edged over the horizon the chaparral seemed to be spotted with diamonds. A bush in the backyard was filled with little rainbows as the sun touched the dew.

It was tribute enough to sunup that it could make even chaparral bushes look beautiful, Augustus thought, and he watched the process happily, knowing it would only last a few minutes.”

Or how about,

“When there was no rain, she liked the nights and would often slip to the rear of the boat and listen to the gurgle and suck of the water.  There were stars by the millions; one night the full moon seemed to rise out of the smoky river.  The moon was so large that at first it seemed to touch both banks.  Its light turned the evening mist to a color like pearl.”

Few novelists can write scenes like that.

Lonesome Dove is epic, not only for length, but for the intimacy you build with all the characters involved during a cattle drive from Texas to Montana.  You become familiar enough with them to feel frustration, happiness, heartbreak, fear, and sometimes grief.

McMurtry’s style, the characters, and the storyline add up to Lonesome Dove becoming one of my favorite novels—until the very last page and that controversial unforgiveable ending. 

It’s okay to leave unresolved plot lines and questions.  Save them for the sequel or let the reader wonder and imagine how they might be concluded.  But McMurtry had already driven home a key point to neatly wrap up all the major plotlines of his story. But he didn’t stop.   He was like a sales person who had closed the sale, but then lost it because he didn’t know when to quit.  So instead of a graceful stop, he took a sharp turn into a ditch.

It’s like he left for a lunch break, and never came back. 

Or started a sentence, and never fini…

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