Lonesome Dove

by Larry McMurtry

Book Overview

A love story, an adventure, and an epic of the frontier, Larry McMurtry s Pulitzer Prize winning classic, Lonesome Dove, the third book in the Lonesome Dove tetralogy, is the grandest novel ever written about the last defiant wilderness of America. Journey to the dusty little Texas town of Lonesome Dove and meet an unforgettable assortment of heroes and outlaws, whores and ladies, Indians and settlers. Richly authentic, beautifully written, always...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1439195269
• ISBN13: 9781439195260
• Release Date: June 2010
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Length: 864 Pages
• Weight: 1.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.0" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

I enjoy the books written by Larry McMurty.

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Lonesome Dove. (HC)-

I am trying o buy multiple copies of L D to send to my family. Being 92 Ineed not mention that's almost too many to count. It seems that I get cut off after each purchase; HELP! Lee

100 times better than the mini-series

Although I am not a "westerns only" reader, I read the book a few years before the mini-series came out and fell in love with the book. It is SO much better than the fantastic mini-series. The book gives the depth to each character and setting that the mini-series did not have the luxury of time to, although the mini-series did a great job. I laughed and cried throughout the book. I have this book on the shelf with my all time favorites. I have read other books, though not all, the author has written and was truly disappointed as none compare, or even come close to, Lonesome Dove.

An Awesome Story

This is a book that I found hard to put down. The book is very well written and seeing the mini series on TV prior to reading the book truly helps picture the individual characters and the scenes where the story takes place . Truly a great read and I will move into the next McMurtry western now.

McMurtry is an authors author!

I had never read any Larry McMurtry Prior to "Lonesome Dove," In fact, If it was not for meeting author James Brumfield at the National Finals Rodeo last week I would still be ignorant of how wonderfull McMurtry is. Brumfield was signing his newest book when he informed that the best book he ever read was "Lonesome Dove." He was more interested in seeing me read "Lonesome Dove" than his own book! I figured this book had to go on my must read list. I finished the book in 3 days, which is an accomplishment considering it is over 800 pages long! I have never been so sad to turn the last page of a book, it is that good. If a book ever deserved the title of the great American novel it is "Lonesome Dove!"

One word: magnificent

I have never been a fan of the literary western genre and confess that I read this book solely because I watched the movie based upon this book. Incredibly, the book supercedes the movie and McMurtry's characterization of Woodrow and Gus are truly stunning. It's the characters that turn this book into a compelling classic, rarely does the reader encounter such deftly-drawn and intriguing men as McCall and McCrae. You feel as if you are in Lonesome Dove with these men, and with them every step of the way from Texas to Montana. It's a magnificent journey and McMurtry is a superlative writer.Even if you've never read a western book in your life, this is a literary masterpiece, the Shakespeare of the range, so to speak.

Hamlet on horseback

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry has been knocking around for more than a decade and is recognized by many as a classic of American Western literature. And no wonder. If you like a good cowboy story; if you're an aficionado of the West, in love with its history and geography; if you want your heart torn out and kicked from Texas to the Teton, then Lonesome Dove is the book you're looking for. Augustus McRae, Woodrow Call, and Jake Spoon, three has-been Texas Rangers, hatch a half-baked scheme to abandon their dusty lives in the un-town of Lonesome Dove on the Rio Grande, and embark on a cattle drive to the upper reaches of Montana. They depart with two thousand head of re-stolen cattle along with a misbegotten crew of sometime ranch hands, lost and found Irish brothers, green local kids, a Mexican cook who can't, and the town whore Lorena -- with hair of gold even though her heart isn't. They struggle north to untamed country none of them but Jake has ever seen -- and him a liar. They cross the Neuces, the Colorado, the Red, the Canadian, the Arkansas and up and up, fighting desperados, Comanches, sandstorms, water moccasins, bad food, bad water, bad luck and bad news. Multiple plots weave and braid and separate and double back upon you again like all the streams and rivers descending from the High Plains. But it is into the strange landscape of the human heart which the reader has been lured. For while this story concerns a pilgrimage to Montana, it is, on another level, a journey in understanding what human life amounts to, balanced as it is between hope and hopelessness, and in the words of Gus McRae, "rich with hardship." It is McMurtry's characters, as much as the route they take, which define this journey. With all their quirkiness, these characters are mind-stickers, all. We're talking Dickens 'n dogies, here. Hamlet on horseback. From the raping, torturing Comanche renegade Blue Duck, so evil as to be devoid of humanity, to the feisty widow who has her way with the the deputy sheriff, a man who finds her "almost as scary as wild pigs", to the tragic young whore Maggie, who asks only to hear her name spoken once by the man she loves, it is a haunting group we travel with. Snake attack on the Neuces to sneak attack on the Musselshell, Lonesome Dove ropes the reader, drags him through hell and high water, and leaves him feeling that the one certain thing is love, the existence of which is proven only by the size of the hole it blasts in the human heart.