Larry McMurtry | |
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 Author photo on thebook jacket of his novel by Douglas PeelThe Last Picture Show, 1966 | |
| Born | Larry Jeff McMurtry (1936-06-03)June 3, 1936 Archer City, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | March 25, 2021(2021-03-25) (aged 84) Tucson, Arizona, U.S. |
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| Education | |
| Years active | 1961–2021 |
| Notable works |
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| Children | James McMurtry |
Larry Jeff McMurtry (June 3, 1936 – March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either theOld West or contemporaryTexas. During a career spanning six decades, he wrote more than thirty novels, numerous essays and memoirs, and approximately fifty screenplays. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34Oscar nominations (13 wins), and his novels were the basis for several acclaimed television miniseries.
McMurtry's early novels, includingHorseman, Pass By (1961),The Last Picture Show (1966), andTerms of Endearment (1975), examined the decline of small-town and rural Texas life; all three were adapted into major films. His 1985 bookLonesome Dove, often considered hismagnum opus, won thePulitzer Prize. The novel, which follows several retiredTexas Rangers on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana, was one of the most popular American novels of the late twentieth century, and it was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in hisLonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries and earned eight more Emmy nominations.
McMurtry and his longtime writing partnerDiana Ossana adapted the screenplay forBrokeback Mountain (2005), which earned an Academy Award forBest Adapted Screenplay. In addition to his literary career, McMurtry was one of America's most prominentantiquarian booksellers. He operated bookstores inWashington, D.C., andArcher City, Texas, where he amassed a stock of nearly half a million volumes. In 2014, he received theNational Humanities Medal.
McMurtry was born inWichita Falls, Texas in 1936, the eldest son of four children of Hazel Ruth (née McIver) and William Jefferson (Jeff Mac) McMurtry.[1][2] His grandfather, father, and uncles were ranchers. He lived on his grandparents' ranch until he was six. In his memoirBooks, McMurtry recalled that there were no books on the ranch, but his extended family would sit on the front porch every night and tell stories. In 1942, McMurtry's cousin Robert Hilburn stopped by the ranch house on his way to enlist for World War II, and left a box containing 19 boys' adventure books from the 1930s. The first book he read wasSergeant Silk: The Prairie Scout.[3]: 1–8 His family then moved to the nearby, town ofArcher City, Texas for more space. The small town later served as the model for the fictional town of Thalia, the setting for his many of his novels.
McMurtry graduated from high school in 1954, one of 19 seniors.[4] His father wanted him to pursue veterinary medicine at Texas A&M, but he did not have interest in animals.[5] For an undergraduate degree, he initially attended Rice University in Houston for three semesters but struggled with mathematics classes, including algebra and calculus. He transferred to the University of North Texas in Denton, where he took courses in creative writing and befriended his classmateGrover Lewis. McMurtry developed several poems and short stories during this studies, and he created a magazine on campus called theCoexistence Review, in which he published early excerpts of what would become his first novel,Horseman, Pass By. He also contributed to a literary magazine, the Avesta.[6] He earned a BA from theUniversity of North Texas in 1958 and an MA fromRice University in 1960.[7]
In 1958,The Southwest Review accepted a poem from McMurtry, his first publication in a major journal.[8] : 65 During the 1960–1961 academic year, McMurtry was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at theStanford University Creative Writing Center, where he studied the craft of fiction underFrank O'Connor andMalcolm Cowley,[9] alongside other aspiring writers, includingWendell Berry,Ken Kesey,Peter S. Beagle andGurney Norman. (Wallace Stegner was on sabbatical in Europe during McMurtry's fellowship year.[10]). His debut novel,Horseman, Pass By, was published in 1961. The coming of age novel chronicles the demise of the Old West from the perspective of Lonnie Bannon; in a review for The New York Times, Wayne Gard wrote that "McMurtry has not only a sharp ear for dialogue but a gift of expression that easily could blossom in more important works."[11]
McMurtry and Kesey remained friends after McMurtry left California and returned to Texas to take a year-long composition instructorship atTexas Christian University.[12] In 1963, he returned to Rice University, where he served as a lecturer in English until 1969, and a visiting professor atGeorge Mason College (1970) andAmerican University (1970–71).[13] He entertained some of his early students with accounts of Hollywood and the filming ofHud, for which he was consulting. In 1964, Kesey and hisMerry Pranksters conducted their noted cross-country trip, stopping at McMurtry's home in Houston. The adventure in the day-glo-painted school busFurthur was chronicled byTom Wolfe inThe Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. That same year, McMurtry was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship.[14]
He next produced a series of novels set in Houston with recurring characters. These includedMoving On (1970),All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers (1972), andTerms of Endearment (1975). InThe New Yorker, Rachel Monroe described these books as "entertaining but uneven books that swing from slapstick to pathos".[15]Terms of Endearment was adapted byJames L. Brooks into a1983 film that won five Academy Awards, includingBest Picture.[16] Thomas Powers, writing inThe New York Review of Books, consideredMoving On McMurtry's finest early work, calling it "a convincing portrait of the deepening silence between men and women left by the long collapse of Texas ranching culture."[17] McMurtry was a regular contributor toThe New York Review of Books.[18]
McMurtry became well known for the film adaptations of his work, especiallyHud (from the novelHorseman, Pass By);[19]Peter Bogdanovich'sThe Last Picture Show;[20]James L. Brooks'sTerms of Endearment, which won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture (1984);[21] andLonesome Dove, a popular television miniseries starringTommy Lee Jones andRobert Duvall.[22][23]
Lonesome Dove originated as a screenplay idea developed by McMurtry and director Peter Bogdanovich, withJohn Wayne,Jimmy Stewart, andHenry Fonda in mind for casting as aging cowboys.[24] The movie was not developed but McMurtry repurposed the idea into a novel about two retiredTexas Rangers, Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, who lead a cattle drive from theRio Grande toMontana. The novel was a critical and commercial success, winning thePulitzer Prize for Fiction and becoming a best seller. George Garrett, writing for theChicago Tribune, described it as a masterpiece, praising its "authority of exact authenticity" and concluding that it restored the tradition of theWestern "by reforming and revising it."[25] McMurtry, however, had a complicated relationship with the novel's reception. He reflected on his 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,Lonesome Dove, inLiterary Life: A Second Memoir (2009), writing that it was the "Gone With the Wind of the West … a pretty good book; it's not a towering masterpiece."[26]
In 1991 McMurtry underwent heart surgery.[27] During his recovery, he suffered severe depression. He recovered at the home of his future writing partnerDiana Ossana and wrote his novelStreets of Laredo at her kitchen counter.[28][29] After surgery, he also wroteCrazy Horse: A Life. A profile inThe Wall Street Journal noted that he "recovered a sense of himself as a writer only after he began" working on the book, writing by long hand.[30] Ossana and McMurtry collaborated on the novelsPretty Boy Floyd (1994) andZeke and Ned (1997), as well as numerous screenplays.[31] In 2006, he was co-winner (withDiana Ossana) of both the Best ScreenplayGolden Globe[32] and theAcademy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay forBrokeback Mountain, adapted from a short story byE. Annie Proulx. He accepted his Oscar while wearing a dinner jacket overjeans andcowboy boots.[33] In his speech, he promoted books, reminding the audience the movie was developed from a short story. In his Golden Globe acceptance speech, he paid tribute to his Swiss-madeHermes 3000 typewriter.[34]
While at Stanford, McMurtry became a rare-book scout.[35] During his years inHouston, he managed a bookstore called the Bookman. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1969. Subsequently in 1970, he started a bookshop inGeorgetown with two partners, which he named Booked Up. In 1988, he opened another Booked Up inArcher City. It became one of the largest antiquarian bookstores in the United States, carrying between 400,000 and 450,000 titles. Citing economic pressures from Internet bookselling, McMurtry came close to shutting down the Archer City store in 2005, but chose to keep it open after great public support.
In early 2012, McMurtry decided to downsize and sell off the greater portion of his inventory. He felt the collection was a liability for his heirs.[36] The auction was conducted on August 10 and 11, 2012, and was overseen by Addison and Sarova Auctioneers ofMacon, Georgia. This epic book auction sold books by the shelf, and was billed as "The Last Booksale", in keeping with the title of McMurtry'sThe Last Picture Show. Dealers, collectors, and gawkers came outen masse from all over the country to witness this historic auction. As stated by McMurtry on the weekend of the sale, "I've never seen that many people lined up in Archer City, and I'm sure I never will again."[37] In April 2006, McMurtry was elected a member of theAmerican Antiquarian Society.[38]
McMurtry was a vigorous defender offree speech and, while serving as president of PEN American Center (nowPEN America) from 1989 to 1991, led the organization's efforts to supportSalman Rushdie,[39] whose novelThe Satanic Verses (1988) causeda major controversy among someMuslims, with theSupreme Leader of Iran,AyatollahRuhollah Khomeini, issuing afatwa calling for Rushdie's assassination, after which attempts were made on Rushdie's life.[40]
In 1989, McMurtry testified on behalf of PEN America before theU.S. Congress in opposition to immigration rules in the 1952McCarran–Walter Act that for decades permitted the visa denial and deportation of foreign writers for ideological reasons.[26] He recounted how before PEN America was to host the 1986 International PEN Congress, "there was a serious question as to whether such a meeting could in fact take place in this country... the McCarran–Walter Act could have effectively prevented such a gathering in the United States." He denounced the relevant rules as "an affront to all who cherish the constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and association. To a writer whose living depends upon the uninhibited interchange of ideas and experiences, these provisions are especially appalling." Subsequently, some provisions that excluded certain classes of immigrants based on their political beliefs were revoked by theImmigration Act of 1990.[41]
McMurtry was a prolific writer over many decades. He stated inBooks: A Memoir that from his first novel on, he would get up early and dash off five pages of narrative. When he published the memoir in 2008, he said this was still his method, although by then, he wrote 10 pages a day. He wrote every day, ignoring holidays and weekends.[42] He did not outline his books, instead writing where his characters took him.[43]Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry quotes criticDave Hickey: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."[44] In an interview with NPR in 2009, he talked about getting old and creative efforts: "I don't have as much creative energy as I did, and I parcel it out... I write just exactly what interests me and not another word."[45]
Scott Kraft ofThe Los Angeles Times wrote that McMurtry became "the dominant voice in Western literature" following the publication of his first novel,Hud.[4] InThe New York Times, Andy Greenwald described McMurtry as "a peerless interlocutor of Texas, bridging the gap between its rural past and its noisy, urban present."[46] Several authors released statements on his death.[47] Stephen King wrote: "I learned from him, which was important, I was entertained by him, which was ALL important. RIP, cowboy."[47] TheTexas Legislature passed a resolution honoring his memory.[48]
I suspect few Texans give a whit where McMurtry ranks as a writer, or whether his hits outnumber his misses. He's given us so much.
McMurtry's impact was especially felt in his hometown ofArcher City. After his death, his former bookshop Booked Up closed, but in 2024 the Archer City Writer's Workshop acquired the building and its estimated 300,000 volumes for the Larry McMurtry Literary Center that attracts travelers.[50]
McMurtry won numerous awards from theTexas Institute of Letters: three times theJesse H. Jones Award—in 1962, forHorseman, Pass By; in 1967, forThe Last Picture Show, which he shared with Tom Pendleton'sThe Iron Orchard; and in 1986, forLonesome Dove. He won theAmon G. Carter award for periodical prose in 1966 forTexas: Good Times Gone or Here Again?[51] and the Lon Tinkle Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1984.[52] In 1986, McMurtry received the annualPeggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award from theTulsa Library Trust.[53]
He met his first wife, Jo Ballard Scott, at a party during his senior year of college at North Texas State University, and they married in 1959.[54]: 59 They had one son, James McMurtry. James and his own son, Curtis McMurtry, are singer/songwriters and guitarists.[55]
McMurtry married Norma Faye Kesey, the widow ofKen Kesey, on April 29, 2011, in a civil ceremony in Archer City.[56] He died on March 25, 2021, at his home in Tucson, Arizona. He was 84 years old.[57]
It was announced in early 2023 that McMurtry's personal property, including his writing desk, typewriters and personal book collection would be sold at public auction by Vogt Auction inSan Antonio,Texas, on May 29, 2023.[58] A large amount of his personal collection of books went to INKQ Rare Books in Addison, Texas.[59]
Larry McMurtry's first three novels, all set in the north Texas town ofThalia followingWorld War II.
The books follow the story of mother/daughter characters Harmony and Pepper.
The books follow the story of character Duane Moore.
The books follow the stories of occasionally recurring characters living in the Houston, Texas, area.
"My father then had the worst idea of all, which was that I go to Texas A&M and become a vet," McMurtry writes in his latest tome Books: A Memoir, which talks about his passion for books.
After he died in 2021, the Texas legislature honored his memory with a resolution celebrating his life.
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