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The writer Larry McMurtry at his home in 1978. He is the subject of Larry McMurtry: a Life, by Tracy Daugherty, St. Martin’s Press, 2023.
Why, you might ask, am I writing a review of a biography of Texas author Larry McMurtry in the Arts and Culture section of Illinois Times? It is a good question because the 473-page biography, Larry McMurtry: a Life, by Tracy Daugherty, has little connection to Illinois. The only link to our state that I could find in McMurtry’s life was his acceptance to the University of Illinois as a graduate student in the school’s writing program. It was one of two programs that accepted the young writer. He chose the other school, Rice University, and, as is often remarked, the rest is history.
I write about him because I read him, and I hope this will serve as an introduction for any Illinois Times readers who don’t yet know him. McMurtry is an important figure in American culture. His books on the American West went a long way towards painting a true portrait of the West, its mythical figures and unique culture. McMurtry’s writing career spanned more than 60 years and, disciplining himself to write at least 10 pages a day, he wrote more than 40 books. His first novel, Horseman Pass By, was published when McMurtry was 25 years old. The story became the Academy Award-winning film, Hud, and McMurtry’s career as a writer was established. The author’s third book, The Last Picture Show, was a semi-biographical novel of his youthful years in Archer City, Texas, a one-stoplight town later made famous in Peter Bogdanovich’s film. The film is in the top 100 of the American Film Institute, secured Academy Awards for Cloris Leachman and Ben Johnson and won critical acclaim and many artistic awards. At the time of its premiere in Archer City, Larry McMurtry was not yet 30 years old.
Young McMurtry never strayed far from his grandfather’s cattle ranch 18 miles from Archer City. His passion for books and writing was self-acquired. He did not grow up in a house or community that was book-centered. After graduation from North Texas University, McMurtry embarked upon a writing career. He was awarded a master’s degree from Rice University and then participated in a one-year writing program at Stanford under the leadership of Wallace Stegner. It was at Stanford that McMurtry, needing to supplement his income, embarked upon a life of collecting and selling books. It was also at Stanford where he met another young writer, Ken Kesey, whose One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest would become one of the world’s best-loved novels. Throughout his life, McMurtry had a unique ability to acquire friendships with writers and filmmakers.
His first marriage ended in divorce but during his life he would have relationships with actresses Cybill Shepherd, Diane Keaton and writer Susan Sontag. The material in Daugherty’s biography touching upon these relationships comes from McMurtry’s own writings and Daugherty seems content to rely upon that material without deeper investigation.
McMurtry was a disciplined writer. He completed his writing early in the day and using a Hermes portable typewriter. His books covered a wide range of subjects, but the main subject was Texas, both contemporary and historical. His goal was to destroy many of the myths of his home state. Accomplishing this task occasionally led to McMurtry facing conflict from native Texans. When his novel The Last Picture Show was filmed in Archer City, the local newspaper published an angry letter about writers who degraded and attacked the morals and attitudes of Texans. Throughout his life McMurtry maintained a love-hate relationship with Archer City. He owned and operated Booked Up, a large bookstore in the community, which during his life occupied multiple buildings on the main street of the town. At one point there were four buildings housing 450,000 books. Before his death he held a multiday auction that brought booksellers from across the United States to Archer City.
His writing also transferred well to the film screen. In addition to Hud and The Last Picture Show, his novel Terms of Endearment, published in 1975, grossed $165 million as a film and garnered five Academy Awards. His novel Lonesome Dove won a Pulitzer Prize and remains one of the most popular television miniseries in history. Ironically, McMurtry viewed the success of his book somewhat differently than did the critics. “I thought I had written about a harsh time and some pretty harsh people, but to the public at large, I had produced something nearer to an idealization; instead of a poor man’s Inferno filled with violence, faithlessness and betrayal, I had actually delivered a kind of Gone With the Wind of the West, a turnabout I’ll be mulling over for a long, long time.” In 2005, McMurtry and Diana Ossana wrote the screenplay adaptation of an Annie Proulx short story titled Brokeback Mountain. It won the two writers an Oscar. McMurtry accepted the award wearing a tuxedo jacket, blue jeans and western dress boots.
McMurtry wrote about and lived in an ever-changing culture. After he died in 2021, the Texas legislature honored his memory with a resolution celebrating his life. Recently, a member of that same legislature said that Texas might need to ban Lonesome Dove from its schools because it was too sexually explicit. Larry McMurtry: a Life is an extraordinary biography of a talented writer and a unique figure of American literature.
Retired Judge Stuart Shiffman of Springfield frequently reviews books for Illinois Times on subjects including sports, history, biography and courtroom fiction.