"The bookshops are a form of ranching. Instead of herding cattle [booksellers] herd books. Writing is a form of herding, too; I herd words into little pargraphlike clusters."
I first read Larry McMurtry back in 1971 after finding a battered, jacketless copy of Moving On on the clearance shelves of a used-book bookstore one day. Picking it up for a dollar, I didn't figure I had a lot to lose and, as it turned out, that dollar may have been one of the most valuable ones I've ever spent in a bookstore because over fifty years later I'm still reading Larry McMurtry.
Over the years, I was lucky enough to catch McMurtry behind the counter of his Booked Up bookstore in Houston on occasion, and even managed to make a mad scramble to Archer City one Saturday morning just in time to watch as McMurtry's dream of turning Archer City into the U.S. version of Hay-on-Wye ended forever (one of the saddest things I've ever witnessed). But Larry McMurtry was a very private man, never one to toot his own horn or to speak in public if he could possibly avoid it, so most everything I thought I knew about him came from reading his novels and memoirs. It is only now that McMurtry has been dead for almost three years that a comprehensive biography has finally been written about him, and thankfully it's a good one.
Tracy Daugherty's Larry McMurtry: A Life reminds us that McMurtry was born just in time to witness the cowboying way of life die in America, an experience that created a feeling of loss deep in McMurtry's soul that would later be reflected in so many of his novels. Sadly, near the end of his life McMurtry would come to believe that he had also lived just long enough to witness the end of bookselling as he knew it. His life began with a feeling of something lost forever, and it ended the same way. But perhaps saddest of all is the way McMurtry had to battle depression from almost the first moment in 1991 when he awoke following quadruple bypass surgery to the day he died in 2021. He believed that "while my body survived, the self that I had once been had lost its life," that he had become a mere ghost or shadow of what he was before the surgery.
But a lot happened between what McMurtry saw as the two greatest cultural losses of his lifetime, and Tracy Daugherty tells us all about it in this detailed (sometimes, I fear, too detailed) biography. As McMurtry's quest carries him from Archer City, to Houston, to Washington D.C., to Hollywood, to Tucson, and back to Archer City, Daugherty fills in the details. It's all there: McMurtry's lifelong relationships with numerous women including actress Diane Keaton and his late-in-life writing partner Diana Ossana; both marriages and his deep love for, and appreciation of, his musician son James McMurtry; his troubled relationship with his parents and the citizens of Archer City who felt they were ill-treated by the town's portrayal in The Last Picture Show; and McMurtry's dissatisfaction with a career that never produced the book he was aiming for.
Two final points to consider:
- Some of McMurtry's books are discussed in depth, even to the extent that major plot lines are revealed and discussed in detail. Readers for whom "spoilers" are an issue should read Larry McMurtry: A Life very selectively and carefully in order to avoid them.
- Especially early in the biography, long chapters are devoted to setting the Texas literary scene (what there was of it) as McMurtry began his literary career. Because I was anxious to learn more about McMurtry, I found some of these chapters to be overly long even to the point of making for frustrating reading. My advice regarding these chapters is to persevere because the added context to McMurtry's own efforts will reward you later with a better understanding of McMurtry's harsh judgement of his own legacy.
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| Tracy Daugherty author photo |
This sounds like a truly fabulous biography. I didn't know that McMurtry had his own bookstore once... or anything about his life really. I've been aware of his books for years...they're everywhere...and of the TV mini series they made of Lonesome Dove. But other than that... His life sounds so interesting. You've got me wanting to read this book...and then go check out some of his novels, too.
ReplyDeleteMcMurtry was a book scout from his earliest days in Houston, and supplemented his income as a college student buying and reselling books to book dealers in Houston and Dallas while in school. Over his lifetime he opened stores in almost every city he settled down in for a while, and I think he saw that as his true calling really. If I remember correctly, he had something like 600,000 books in Archer City at his peak; had them scattered all over in the little town as he bought up one vacant building after the other.
DeleteIt's an interesting bio, I think, because of how much of the inner man it reveals.
This does sound fascinating. I haven't read any of his books yet but I sometimes find that doesn't matter when reading author biographies. How sad that his mental health was so poor after his heart bypass surgery. That's a really strange case.
ReplyDeleteAccording to the author, the emotional reaction he had to his open heart surgery is one known to doctors. I don't know how common it is, but apparently it is common enough, that it's not unexpected when it happens. McMurtry truly believed for a long time that the most important part of himself died on the table during the time his heart was shut down. Those around him watched him suffer but could do little to improve his mental state no matter how hard they tried to help him.
DeleteHi Sam, great review and I read Benjamin At the Dairy Queen. Larry mentioned in that book that his father came to resent his mother because she had an easier life on the ranch than Larry's grandmother had. That observation will stay with me.
ReplyDeleteSaw pictures of Archer City and it's very stark but it seem like a fascinating place and I am sad to learn that Larry McMurty was never able to bring his two loves together bookstores and Archer City in a lasting way.
The author of the bio makes reference to that same sentiment regarding his father, Kathy. McMurtry had a difficult relationship with his parents. They sometimes blamed him for causing friction and resentment between themselves and their lifetime friends and neighbors because of the intimate details he revealed about the town in his books. And I think his father never believed that Larry really "worked" for a living.
DeleteThe pictures I took on that trip to Archer City can be seen at this link: https://bookchase.blogspot.com/search?q=last+book+sale or you can just search the blog with "last book sale" to go directly to the page.
Thanks for the link Sam and I read your post The Last Book Sale and really enjoyed it. You were right to take that trip to Archer City because good memories are priceless.
DeleteLarry McMurty's book collecton is legendary and the books he collected are still out there in the hands of readers who are reading them. And its got me thinking I need to invest a little bit in collecting books. Not many because who can afford it these days but if I really love a book, Pride and Prejudice etc, I want to have a nice physical copy. I also must read Lonesome Dove and Tracy Daugherty's biography.
I purposely book-scouted on weekends here during the eighties and did pretty well for a few years. Often coming home with a book I still have while finding and reselling more than enough others on the same weekend to pay for mine and still leave some cash for the next weekend hunt in my pocket. I have a dozen or so books I'd never let go of now because they mean so much to me. I agree with you that there's nothing like a physical version of a favorite book. One of mine is a Lonesome Dove first printing that includes the spelling error that was corrected in the second printing of the first edition.
DeleteA very interesting post.
ReplyDeleteThanks. I really like this book and learned a whole lot about that period of Texas literary history. It's long, but well worth the time it takes to get through it.
DeleteClever quote by the author.
ReplyDeleteIt really was clever, I thought. Paints the perfect picture for a West Texas writer like he was.
DeleteThis does sound very good (although the length would be challenge). I read the biography of Rex Stout, which is even longer, and it was very detailed and mentioned every book and novella or novelette he wrote, but did not review plots at all. It was worth the long read because I like Stout's work so much. When I read it I had not read every one of the mysteries, and when I got to that point in the biography, I stopped and found a copy of the book, and read it. So it took me a while.
ReplyDeleteI think this would be a worthwhile read for me and I could skip or scan the plots of specific books. (I did that for the Ross Macdonald biography, which was a great read.) I will wait and see if I can get a copy at the book sale in September, and if not, then I will seek one out.
Thanks for this comprehensive review.
I hope you find a copy in September at the book sale because it sounds like you would enjoy it. I'm a fan of Stout's books back from when his books were at their peak of popularity, but I know very little about his personal life or career, really. What is the title of the bio you read?
DeleteI'm always planning to go back and read at least a few of the Nero Wolfe novels and Gardner's Perry Mason books but never seem to get it done. Maybe one day...sure hope so.
The biography is Rex Stout: a Biography by John McAleer, published in 1977. There appears to be a later edition titled, Rex Stout: A Majesty's Life, published 2002. Same author, and both editions have a foreword by P. G. Wodehouse, which I had forgotten.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Tracy. I'll look for it.
DeleteGlad you made it thru this important tome. Diane Keaton eh? I didn't know that. I've seen his son in concert a couple times - he has some good songs. I really need to dive into McMurtry's books head-on. Somehow I'm a newbie, even though I went to college in San Antone. Did it say anything in the bio about him buying & owning a bookstore in Wash, D.C.? I think he owned one in Georgetown when I was living there. Then he sold it after awhile. He seemed a true hero to the book & bookstore world.
ReplyDeleteThere's quite a bit about the D.C. bookstore, and why he spread bookstores all over the country the way he did (sometimes just to give a bookish friend of his a job). He was one of the last old-time book scouts to work this country everywhere he went, and I admire his "weakness" for buying books the way he did. It's kind of funny how during that last Archer City book auction, he mixed valuable rare books with books no one had any interest in paying a dime for. He doesn't seem to have been able to toss out anything between covers once he got his hands on it.
DeleteMcMurtry seems to have been the confidante/ best friend of a large number of women over the years. Some of them did from lifelong bonds with him, the one between him and Diane Keaton being one of the longest of those relationships, and maybe the most active one. They talked several times a week no matter how geographically far apart they may have been at the time.
That's interesting about him and Diane Keaton. He was a champion of books and bookstores everywhere. He is missed! I'm curious to read the book at sometime and hear thoughts on the DC bookstore and his personal ties too ... like with his son etc.
DeleteMcMurtry was unique in so many ways. I was surprised about much of his personal life that's covered in the biography, but in the end, it made him much more human to me. He was one of those Texas writers that I was lucky enough to spend a lifetime reading and kind of watching from far away.
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