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Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

Leslie Marmon Silko

Ceremony: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) Leslie Marmon Silko Amazon Price: $10.09
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 128 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

A MASTERPIECE 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual Practice
A classic in Native American literature, Ceremony tells the story of Tayo, a young Native man who returns from W.W.II with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Silko's masterful writing interweaves the personal, social and societal causes for Tayo's illness with traditional Native legends and cures. Beautiful, inspiring and very harsh. Like Tayo's life. A stellar book. I have a list of study questions our Book Review used in examining this book. E mail me if you want them.

Editorial Review:

Thirty years since its original publication, Ceremony remains one of the most profound and moving works of Native American literature, a novel that is itself a ceremony of healing. Tayo, a World War II veteran of mixed ancestry, returns to the Laguna Pueblo Reservation. He is deeply scarred by his experience as a prisoner of the Japanese and further wounded by the rejection he encounters from his people. Only by immersing himself in the Indian past can he begin to regain the peace that was taken from him. Masterfully written, filled with the somber majesty of Pueblo myth, Ceremony is a work of enduring power.

Lonesome Dove

Larry McMurtry

Lonesome Dove Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $7.99
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 390 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THIS ONE, YOU ARE MISSING A READING TREAT! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is one of those rather rare books that can be classified as a "cross over book." That is, you really need not be a fan of the Western genre to appreciate and enjoy reading it. I fall into that category. While I have certainly read Westerns from time to time, I do not particularly like them nor do I seek them out. This work is quite different though. I have to admit that I have actually read this thing twice over the years and if I make it much longer, will probably read it again one of these days. I was that impressed with it.

The story or plot has been reviewed to death here, so I will not dwell on that aspect of the novel that much. Suffice to say the setting take place from Texas to the northern U.S. and points in between. It takes place during the latter part of our western expansion period. The tale centers around a cattle drive from Texas and then north. One of the beauties of this book though, is that McMurty has woven quite a number of tales, plots and subplots into this story but has done it in a way that there is not mass confusion for the reader and they all, i.e. the subplots are indeed linked in various ways.

For me though the story was almost secondary. The strength of this work lies in the characters the author has so well developed. From page one you absolutely become involved with each and ever individual McMurtry introduces, even the bad guys. The author has the ability to make the reader feel he is there with them, seeing what the characters see, feeling what the character feels. Secondly, the physical description of the country, area and location of this (or these) tales is second to none. I have had the opportunity to have either lived, visited or extensively travel in or through all the locations mentioned in this book and can attest to the fact that the author has nailed them perfectly. His vivid and accurate descriptions of the country are second to none. Third, I love McMurtry's humor. I actually found myself laughing out loud at some of his ploys. On the other hand, when the author records grim happenings, they are truly grim and you feel those as much as you do any other part of this story.

I truly feel this is one of the better novels written over the last 40 years or so and truly deserved a Pulitzer for it. I doubt that most readers, i.e. those that actually read the book, will not enjoy each and every word. As an added bonus, there has been a wonderful movie made of this story and unlike most instances, the movie is almost as enjoyable (not quite) as the book. I do recommend this work very highly. McMurtry is a natural story teller and has the wonderful ability to record his stories in the written word. If you have not already done so, give this one a read. I seriously doubt you will be sorry.

Editorial Review:

Larry McMurtry, in books like The Last Picture Show, has depicted the modern degeneration of the myth of the American West. The subject of Lonesome Dove, cowboys herding cattle on a great trail-drive, seems like the very stuff of that cliched myth, but McMurtry bravely tackles the task of creating meaningful literature out of it. At first the novel seems the kind of anti-mythic, anti-heroic story one might expect: the main protagonists are a drunken and inarticulate pair of former Texas Rangers turned horse rustlers. Yet when the trail begins, the story picks up an energy and a drive that makes heroes of these men. Their mission may be historically insignificant, or pointless--McMurtry is smart enough to address both possibilities--but there is an undoubted valor in their lives. The result is a historically aware, intelligent, romantic novel of the mythic west that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

Comanche Moon : A Novel

Larry McMurtry

Comanche Moon : A Novel Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $11.56
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 140 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In a book that serves as a both a sequel to Dead Man's Walk and a prequel to the beloved Lonesome Dove, McMurtry fills in the missing chapters in the Call and McCrae saga. It is a fantastic read, in many ways the best and gutsiest of the series. We join the Texas Rangers in their waning Indian-fighting years. The Comanches, after one last desperate raid led by the fearsome-but-aging Buffalo Hump, are almost defeated, though Buffalo Hump's son, Blue Duck, still terrorizes the relentless flow of settlers and lawmen. As Augustus and Woodrow follow one-eyed, tobacco-spitting Captain Inish Scull deep into a murderous madman's den in Mexico, their thoughts turn toward the end of their careers and the women they love in remarkably different ways back in Austin. What's amazing about McMurtry's West is that he sees beyond the romance. Neither his Indians, his cowboys, his gunslingers, nor his women act the way they did in either Zane Grey novels or John Wayne movies. Incredible beauty and lightning-quick violence are the bookends of his West, but it is the in-between moments of suffering and boredom where McMurtry shines. The suffering is poignant and heart-rending; the boredom tempered with doses of Augustus McCrae's sharp humor. Don't be surprised if you find yourself crying and laughing on the same page.

Streets Of Laredo : A Novel

Larry McMurtry

Streets Of Laredo : A Novel Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $11.68
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 74 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Vivid Storytelling About the Old West 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

The plot of STREETS OF LAREDO seems simple enough. Captain Woodrow Call, bounty hunter extraordinaire, is hired by Colonel Terry, the president of a railroad, to capture train robber and serial killer, Joey Garza. But there are enough twists and turns in Larry McMurtry's novel to turn a simple situation into a complex, risky adventure where both laws and human endurance are stretched to the limit, and often broken.

From the start, Call's quest is filled with obstacles. His colleague, Pea Eye Parker, refuses to join him on the hunt for the first time in years. Like Call, Pea Eye, is getting old and isn't sure he's up to another hunt, especially one that will take him far away from his wife and their five children. Call is also accompanied by Colonel Terry's New York accountant, Ned Bookshire, a man who knows he's out of his depth in the rugged west, but who must accompany Call to keep track of expenses for the Colonel, or else lose his job. From there, things get worse, especially when more than one serial killer arrives in the area to cause trouble.

I've never read a Larry McMurtry novel before, and although I'm told STREETS OF LAREDO is a sequel to LONESOME DOVE, this novel stands well on its own, despite occasional references to the past. Especially interesting was McMurtry's use of back story to provide intriguing and useful details about main characters and a few secondary characters. I have to admit that some back stories were too long. Also, while POV changed often and smoothly, nearly every character used the word "foolish" to describe their past mistakes. By the time Joe Garza reflects on his "foolish" mistakes, I'm wishing McMurtry had kept a thesaurus nearby while writing. Still, McMurtry's talent for detail, narrative description, and riveting storytelling made this novel a great read.

Editorial Review:

The final book of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetralogy is an exhilarating tale of legend and heroism. Captain Woodrow Call, August McCrae's old partner, is now a bounty hunter hired to track down a brutal young Mexican bandit. Riding with Call are an Eastern city slicker, a witless deputy, and one of the last members of the Hat Creek outfit, Pea Eye Parker, now married to Lorena -- once Gus McCrae's sweetheart. This long chase leads them across the last wild streches of the West into a hellhole known as Crow Town and, finally, into the vast, relentless plains of the Texas frontier.

Dead Man's Walk (Lonesome Dove)

Larry McMurtry

Dead Man's Walk (Lonesome Dove) Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $7.99
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 82 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this prequel to McMurtry's 1986 Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call are invincible young bucks, Texas Rangers, full of youthful energy and, quite frankly, full of themselves. That is until they're utterly consumed by the vicious battlefield of the early-19th-century Wild West. Their journey takes them across barren deserts and raging rivers and through steep and snowy mountains, often on foot and with barely enough provisions and clothing to keep them from certain death. The constant threat of attack by Comanches keeps them awake nights, fearing for their lives--and for good reason. "Buffalo Hump reached down and grabbed the terrified boy by his long black hair. He yanked his horse to a stop, lifted Zeke Moody off his feet, and slashed at his head with a knife, just above the boy's ears. Then he whirled and raced across the front of the huddled Rangers, dragging Zeke by the hair. As the horse increased its speed, the scalp tore loose and Zeke fell free. Buffalo Hump had whirled again, and held aloft the bloody scalp."

This bedraggled group of adventurers--on their foolhardy expedition to seize Santa Fe from the Mexicans (who also prove to be formidable enemies)--includes a salty assortment of cowboys, scouts, fortune seekers, and a fat and sassy whore nicknamed "The Great Western." McMurtry's adept storytelling paints a portrait of the Wild West that at times is palpable. One can almost smell the campfires, the body odors, and the long-awaited piece of meat after weeks without a proper meal. Dead Man's Walk will satisfy your craving for adventure, without having to put your life on the line.

LEAVING CHEYENNE : A Novel

Larry McMurtry

LEAVING CHEYENNE : A Novel Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $10.41
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Very pleasing early McMurtry 4 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

Since I already have read just about every one of McMurtry's books I'm going back to the early books. This one is a fine composition based on three lives forever bound together by the warm and enigmatic female of the trio, Molly. McMurty, with his flair for the unusual, paints an original picture of an unlikely relationship that could only happen in real life. McMurtry treads where writers fear to go, always creating unique characters to unveil the complexities of the human condition. I couldn't help but fall in love with these three personalities. You have to read this book to believe it. McMurtry (along with Dos Passos) is in my opinion the greatest American writer. May he continue to bless us with his effortlessly flowing narratives. I'm about to read the final book of the Berrybender clan and I can't wait to get to it. The Berrybenders are not to be missed!

Editorial Review:

My foot's in the stirrup,

My pony won't stand;

Goodbye, old partner,

I'm leaving Cheyenne.

-- Old cowboy song

Leaving Cheyenne, Larry McMurtry's second novel, traces the loves of three West Texas characters as they follow that sundown trail: Gideon Fry, the serious rancher; Johnny McCloud, the free-spirited cowhand; and Molly Taylor, the sensitive woman they both love and who bears them each a son. Tragic circumstances mark the trail but McMurtry's style never turns melodramatic or sentimental.

Folly and Glory: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives)

Larry McMurtry

Folly and Glory: A Novel (Berrybender Narratives) Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $4.99
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this brilliant saga -- the final volume of The Berrybender Narratives and an epic in its own right -- Larry McMurtry lives up to his reputation for delivering novels with "wit, grace, and more than a hint of what might be called muscular nostalgia, fit together to create a panoramic portrait of the American West" (The New York Times Book Review).

As this finale opens, Tasmin and her family are under irksome, though comfortable, arrest in Mexican Santa Fe. Her father, the eccentric Lord Berrybender, is planning to head for Texas with his whole family and his retainers, English, American, and Native American. Tasmin, who would once have followed her husband, Jim Snow, anywhere, is no longer even sure she likes him, or knows where to go to next. Neither does anyone else -- even Captain Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, is puzzled by the great changes sweeping over the West, replacing red men and buffalo with towns and farms.

In the meantime, Jim Snow, accompanied by Kit Carson, journeys to New Orleans, where he meets up with a muscular black giant named Juppy, who turns out to be one of Lord Berrybender's many illegitimate offspring, and in whose company they make their way back to Santa Fe. But even they are unable to prevent the Mexicans from carrying the Berrybender family on a long and terrible journey across the desert to Vera Cruz.

Starving, dying of thirst, and in constant, bloody battle with slavers pursuing them, the Berrybenders finally make their way to civilization -- if New Orleans of the time can be called that -- where Jim Snow has to choose between Tasmin and the great American plains, on which he has lived all his life in freedom, and where, after all her adventures, Tasmin must finally decide where her future lies.

With a cast of characters that includes almost every major real-life figure of the West, Folly and Glory is a novel that represents the culmination of a great and unique four-volume saga of the early days of the West; it is one of Larry McMurtry's finest achievements.

The LAST PICTURE SHOW : A Novel

Larry McMurtry

The LAST PICTURE SHOW : A Novel Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $11.90
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 48 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In The Last Picture Show Larry McMurtry introduced characters who would show up again in later novels, Texasville and Duane's Depressed. This first volume of the trilogy drops the reader into the one-stoplight town of Thalia, Texas, where Duane Moore, his buddy Sonny, and his girlfriend Jacy are all stumbling along the rocky road to adulthood. Duane wants nothing more than to marry Jacy; Sonny wants what Duane has; and Jacy wants to get the hell out of Thalia any way she can. This is not a novel of big ideas or defining moments; over the course of a year Duane and Jacy make up and break up, Sonny begins an affair with his high-school football coach's wife, and the only movie house in town closes its doors forever. Yet it is out of these small-town experiences--a nude swimming party in Wichita, a failed sexual encounter during a senior trip, a botched elopement, an enlistment--that McMurtry builds his tale and reveals his characters' hearts. No epiphanies here, just a lot of hard-won experience that leaves none of his protagonists particularly wiser, though they're all a little sadder by the end. --Alix Wilber

By Sorrow's River: A Novel (The Berrybender Narratives)

Larry McMurtry

By Sorrow's River: A Novel (The Berrybender Narratives) Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $11.20
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 20 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this tale of high-spirited and terrifying adventure, set against the background of the West that Larry McMurtry has made his own, By Sorrow's River is an epic in its own right, with an extraordinary young woman as its leading figure.

At the heart of this third volume of his Western saga remains the beautiful and determined Tasmin Berrybender, now married to the "Sin Killer" and mother to their young son, Monty. By Sorrow's River continues the Berrybender party's trail across the endless Great Plains of the West toward Santa Fe, where they intend, those who are lucky enough to survive the journey, to spend the winter. They meet up with a vast array of characters from the history of the West: Kit Carson, the famous scout; Le Partezon, the fearsome Sioux war chief; two aristocratic Frenchmen whose eccentric aim is to cross the Great Plains by hot air balloon; a party of slavers; a band of raiding Pawnee; and many other astonishing characters who prove, once again, that the rolling, grassy plains are not, in fact, nearly as empty of life as they look. Most of what is there is dangerous and hostile, even when faced with Tasmin's remarkable, frosty sangfroid. She is one of the strongest and most interesting of Larry McMurtry's women characters, and is at the center of this powerful and ambitious novel of the West.

The Wandering Hill: A Novel (The Berrybender Narratives)

Larry McMurtry

The Wandering Hill: A Novel (The Berrybender Narratives) Larry McMurtry Amazon Price: $10.20
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The Wandering Hill, the second volume in Larry McMurtry's The Berrybender Narratives, retains the humor of the first installment, Sin Killer, while establishing a more meditative mood. Picking up where Sin Killer left off, The Wandering Hill finds noble English family the Berrybenders waiting out the oncoming winter at a high plains trading post, delaying their hunting expedition through the frontier-era American west. Tight confines force the spirited, bickering Berrybenders to contend with one another, as well as an assortment of colorful attendants and raw trappers. Conflict has arisen between fiery and very pregnant heroine Tasmin and her stoical, evangelical mountain man husband Jim Snow, a.k.a. Sin Killer. Selfish, randy patriarch Lord Berrybender, having lost a leg, seven toes, and three fingers thus far on their journey (though not his "favorite appendage"), is slowly losing his sanity. Malicious youngest child Mary begins an odd pseudo-sexual friendship with naturalist Piet Van Wely, while "foppish" heir Bobbety's no less ambiguous relationship with priest Father Geoffrin inspires his father to accidentally stick his son in the eye with a fork. In between many such self-inflicted disasters, three children are born, fierce native tribes attack, a man is sewn into a buffalo carcass, and many lives are lost, often in the presence of a strange, mobile hill whose legendary appearance signals impending doom. McMurtry, meanwhile, continues the momentum he built with Sin Killer, offering graceful storytelling, wonderfully dimensional realism, and deadpan wit. The wintry Wandering Hill, however, diverges from Sin Killer's madcap activity to further consider the inner lives of many of its splendid characters. McMurtry will have his fans clamoring for an answer, though delighting in his wandering path toward a resolution. --Ross Doll

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