All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers

by Larry McMurtry

Book Overview

Ranging from Texas to California on a young writer's journey in a car he calls El Chevy, "All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers "is one of Larry McMurtry's most vital and entertaining novels. Danny Deck is on the verge of success as an author when he flees Houston and hurtles unexpectedly into the hearts of three women: a girlfriend who makes him happy but who won't stay, a neighbor as generous as she is lusty, and his pal Emma Horton. It's a wild...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826305938
• ISBN13: 9780826305930
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Excellent

I read this book when I was 23 and found it profounding, educational & entertaining. It made a huge impact on my life at the time. Every young man looking for a direction in life should read about Danny Deck. A great read and the best book I ever read.

This is NOT a western!!!

One of the best books ever written. This is McMurtry at his finest. I have missed Danny Deck (main character) since I read the last line of this novel. This is the first McMurtry book I ever read. I later read every fictional book he wrote just to hear his "voice" again. This says volumes seeing that I normally have no interest in western genre; but I'll read the western ones because I grow to care for his characters as they dance off of the pages. After reading this book you should also read Terms of Endearment, Evening Star and Moving On for some of the same characters. This book really should become a film. Thank you Mr. McMurtry!!!

What it's like to be a hopeless romantic and a true creative

I enjoyed this book very much. For me, it delves into what it's like to be a creative person in the 'normal' material world. You always feel like an outsider. I identify with this book myself and it is one of my favorites. The book has all the elements of a good book in it, including sex. Without giving any of the plot of the book away, I can say that McMurtry makes some compelling, touching and prolific statements about what it feels like to operate on the fringe, as an observer. What do you hold onto in life as important? What do you let go of? What indeed...

About life and all the forces that take you to crazy places

Danny Deck is symbolic of the confusion that living life brings to us. I think everybody has wanted to run away at times and Danny does. Danny let's us run away and enjoy the craziness of life and the twists and turns it brings us. You'll feel for Danny and won't want the end to come. My favorite McMurtry read, barely beating out Lonesome Dove.

As good as anything written today, probably better

Early McMurtry, 1971, I believe, and the first of his books I ever read. Funny, incredibly funny, I laughed out loud over and over, and then really very sad. A book about the struggle between wanting to have a life and trying to be a writer--or, art vs. life. A brilliant novel, touching, clever, resonant. A MUST READ!!!!!