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In a Narrow Grave : Essays on Texas
Writing with characteristic grace and wit, Larry McMurtry tackles the full spectrum of his favorite themes -- from sex, literature, and cowboys to rodeos, small-town folk, and big-city slickers.
First published in 1968, In a Narrow Grave is the classic statement of what it means to come from Texas. In these essays, McMurtry opens a window into the past and present of America's largest state. In his own words:
"Before I was out of high school, I realized I was witnessing the dying of a way of life -- the rural, pastoral way of life. In the Southwest the best energies were no longer to be found on the homeplace, or in the small towns; the cities required these energies and the cities bought them...."
"I recognized, too, that the no-longer-open but still spacious range on which my ranching family had made its livelihood...would not produce a livelihood for me or for my siblings and their kind....The myth of the cowboy grew purer every year because there were so few actual cowboys left to contradict it...."
"I had actually been living in cities for fourteen years when I pulled together these essays; intellectually I had been a city boy, but imaginatively, I was still trudging up the dusty path that led out of the country...."
An introduction: the God abandons Texas --
Here's HUD in your eye --
Cowboys, movies, myths, & Cadillacs: an excursus on ritual forms in the western movie --
Southwestern literature? --
Eros in Archer County --
A look at the lost frontier --
The old soldier's joy --
Love, death, and the Astrodome --
A handful of roses --
Take my saddle from the wall: a valediction
First published in 1968, In a Narrow Grave is the classic statement of what it means to come from Texas. In these essays, McMurtry opens a window into the past and present of America's largest state. In his own words:
"Before I was out of high school, I realized I was witnessing the dying of a way of life -- the rural, pastoral way of life. In the Southwest the best energies were no longer to be found on the homeplace, or in the small towns; the cities required these energies and the cities bought them...."
"I recognized, too, that the no-longer-open but still spacious range on which my ranching family had made its livelihood...would not produce a livelihood for me or for my siblings and their kind....The myth of the cowboy grew purer every year because there were so few actual cowboys left to contradict it...."
"I had actually been living in cities for fourteen years when I pulled together these essays; intellectually I had been a city boy, but imaginatively, I was still trudging up the dusty path that led out of the country...."
An introduction: the God abandons Texas --
Here's HUD in your eye --
Cowboys, movies, myths, & Cadillacs: an excursus on ritual forms in the western movie --
Southwestern literature? --
Eros in Archer County --
A look at the lost frontier --
The old soldier's joy --
Love, death, and the Astrodome --
A handful of roses --
Take my saddle from the wall: a valediction
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
About the author
Larry McMurtry
173 books3,274 followersLarry McMurtry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas on June 3, 1936. He is the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, three memoirs, two essay collections, and more than thirty screenplays.
His first published book, Horseman, Pass By, was adapted into the film "Hud." A number of his other novels also were adapted into movies as well as a television mini-series.
Among many other accolades, in 2006 he was the co-winner of both the Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Brokeback Mountain."
His first published book, Horseman, Pass By, was adapted into the film "Hud." A number of his other novels also were adapted into movies as well as a television mini-series.
Among many other accolades, in 2006 he was the co-winner of both the Best Screenplay Golden Globe and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for "Brokeback Mountain."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
October 28, 2018
McMurtry is somewhat of a paradox. He is perhaps more critical of Texas than any other writer, but he also confesses to his love for the state. He recognizes this irony, and has come to terms with it. Written in 1968 before he became a nationally recognized success, McMurtry takes his home state to task in this collection. He shares his thoughts and experiences on his first three novels and, in my favorite piece, shares the history of the McMurtry clan over the last three generations. That piece is often hilarious, occasionally sad, and as is typical in a McMurtry story, filled to the brim with poetic writing and rich imagery. Even his nonfiction can be called spellbinding.
There’s something comforting about sitting down with a McMurtry book. “In a Narrow Grave” caught my eye as I walked through my library, and I decided it has been too long since I read McMurtry. A nice reminder for me of how much I treasure his writing.
There’s something comforting about sitting down with a McMurtry book. “In a Narrow Grave” caught my eye as I walked through my library, and I decided it has been too long since I read McMurtry. A nice reminder for me of how much I treasure his writing.
April 15, 2012
McMurtry, in this collection of essays about Texas, says he prefers fiction to nonfiction, for various reasons, but I for one find these ambivalent ruminations on his home state more enjoyable than some of his fiction. The insights come fast and furious in this short book, by comparison with a slow-moving novel like "Moving On," written about this same time, where a few ideas are stretched thin across several hundred pages.
Published in 1968, the content of "Narrow Grave" will seem dated to some readers. Written in the shadow of the assassination in Dallas and while another Texan was in the White House, the essays capture Texas in a period of rough transition from its rural past to its globalized present (the rise and fall of Enron would certainly have been featured in a current version of this book).
Much of it is timeless, however. It includes one of my favorite McMurtry essays, "Take My Saddle From the Wall: A Valediction," in which he provides a history of the McMurtry family, who settled in the 1880s on 320 acres west of Wichita Falls and in the following generation relocated to the Panhandle to live mostly as cowboys and ranchers. In this essay, McMurtry separates the mythic cowboy from the actual one and describes how cowboys are probably the biggest believers in the myths about them. It's full of ironies, colorful personalities, and wonderful details.
Altogether, the book attempts to present an unsentimental portrait of a state that also tends to get carried away by its own myths. The result is often a jaundiced view and gets to sounding like the worst Paul Theroux travel writing, where it seems like the writer has a personal grudge against the place he's describing. A car trip from Brownsville to the Panhandle is great fun for the wealth of local color captured along the way, but McMurtry focuses on every unhappy and unfortunate detail as if to warn the reader away from ever doing the same. The description of a fiddlers contest in East Texas is downright unkind.
It's easy to see, however, that it's a lover's quarrel McMurtry has with Texas. I gladly recommend this entertaining book to readers curious about the Lone Star State and the man who wrote "The Last Picture Show" and "Lonesome Dove"
Published in 1968, the content of "Narrow Grave" will seem dated to some readers. Written in the shadow of the assassination in Dallas and while another Texan was in the White House, the essays capture Texas in a period of rough transition from its rural past to its globalized present (the rise and fall of Enron would certainly have been featured in a current version of this book).
Much of it is timeless, however. It includes one of my favorite McMurtry essays, "Take My Saddle From the Wall: A Valediction," in which he provides a history of the McMurtry family, who settled in the 1880s on 320 acres west of Wichita Falls and in the following generation relocated to the Panhandle to live mostly as cowboys and ranchers. In this essay, McMurtry separates the mythic cowboy from the actual one and describes how cowboys are probably the biggest believers in the myths about them. It's full of ironies, colorful personalities, and wonderful details.
Altogether, the book attempts to present an unsentimental portrait of a state that also tends to get carried away by its own myths. The result is often a jaundiced view and gets to sounding like the worst Paul Theroux travel writing, where it seems like the writer has a personal grudge against the place he's describing. A car trip from Brownsville to the Panhandle is great fun for the wealth of local color captured along the way, but McMurtry focuses on every unhappy and unfortunate detail as if to warn the reader away from ever doing the same. The description of a fiddlers contest in East Texas is downright unkind.
It's easy to see, however, that it's a lover's quarrel McMurtry has with Texas. I gladly recommend this entertaining book to readers curious about the Lone Star State and the man who wrote "The Last Picture Show" and "Lonesome Dove"
April 4, 2024
As McMurtry hints at throughout most of these essays, there are clear lines drawn throughout Texas. Geographic and visible as well as social and hidden. Part of the state is the West, other parts the South, other parts completely foreign to the Union, and even still other parts belonging to a not so forgotten history of independence no other state can claim.
If you have family in or from Texas, you understand the puzzle. It’s pride encrusted with time. Lives measured out in sunrise gazes and porch side conversations. Each state has its history. Wide and personal. But few states have stories that rely less on words than images. So much of Texas is independent of nature’s architecture. Everything is open. With this much land and such a wide view of it all, attention must go somewhere else.
Stunning as it is, it isn’t the landscape that continues to magnetize so many Texans. It’s what McMurtry commits so few direct words to throughout the essays. The knowing wink between cousins, grandparents, and grandchildren that doesn’t rely on words for expression. His personal history of McMurtrys scattered across the small Texas towns is a microcosm of most Texan families. Generations of life laying underneath the stones of time. Most will never be uncovered and it’s not a mystery that most would prefer it this way.
If you have family in or from Texas, you understand the puzzle. It’s pride encrusted with time. Lives measured out in sunrise gazes and porch side conversations. Each state has its history. Wide and personal. But few states have stories that rely less on words than images. So much of Texas is independent of nature’s architecture. Everything is open. With this much land and such a wide view of it all, attention must go somewhere else.
Stunning as it is, it isn’t the landscape that continues to magnetize so many Texans. It’s what McMurtry commits so few direct words to throughout the essays. The knowing wink between cousins, grandparents, and grandchildren that doesn’t rely on words for expression. His personal history of McMurtrys scattered across the small Texas towns is a microcosm of most Texan families. Generations of life laying underneath the stones of time. Most will never be uncovered and it’s not a mystery that most would prefer it this way.
July 1, 2013
Damn good book about Texas in all its (created) glory and (glorious) contradictions. Few are ever able to write objectively about this state, it is a place prone to hyperbole both by those on the outside as much as in, but McMurtry writes honestly from his mid-1960s vantage point about things and places that have not changed as much as folks would like to believe they have (his descriptions of the Dallas and Houston as boomtowns is still 100% fitting, and his portrait of Austin as a city of the awkward tension between politicians and a certain breed of low-rent intellectual is fascinating and rarely spoken of these days). Overall, the tone is not elegiac but nonetheless sad as McMurtry speaks throughout of the Great Migration of rural Texans into sub/urban spaces, a process that was all but complete by the 60s, and the death of the great open expanses of Texas that has forever defined the mentality of everyone and everything within the borders of the state.
Highly recommended to any and all readers looking for a fuller understanding of where Texas has been, where it is, and where it will always go (upward, bigger, better, more expensive, etc).
Highly recommended to any and all readers looking for a fuller understanding of where Texas has been, where it is, and where it will always go (upward, bigger, better, more expensive, etc).
February 27, 2017
"We have never really captured San Antonio, we Texans—somehow the Spanish have managed to hold it. We have attacked with freeways and motels, shopping centers, and now that H-bomb of boosterism, HemisFair; but happily the victory still eludes us. San Antonio has kept an ambiance that all the rest of our cities lack."
March 6, 2024
One of my favorite works of nonfiction Americana is Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley”. There Steinbeck muses that Texas was less of a place and more of a state of mind. If Steinbeck is right and Texas truly is a state of mind, then there is no one who encapsulates it more than McMurtry.
I have read very little McMurtry but Hannah has inspired me to explore the great Texan author. I knew I wanted to split up my theology readings with something different and Texas’ recent birthday felt like a perfect occasion to start a collection of essays on the state.
“In a Narrow Grave” was a wonderfully written collection of essays by the great Larry McMurtry. It’s odd how at once strikingly similar the collection of essays was to something you might expect to read from Wendell Berry. The work longs for a place that no longer exists, and may not have ever. The work calls people back to a simpler time. And the work watches an agrarian society age into something unrecognizable by our forefathers. However, where Berry is woefully optimistic, McMurtry almost has no hope.
This may have been one of the saddest collection of essays I have ever read. The first essay, “Here’s HUD in your Eye” is essentially a post mortem for Texas and the American cowboy. McMurtry sees Texas turning into a mini aped version of California. It’s unreal how similar McMurtry sounds like my friends who live in Austin today. “A Look at the Lost Frontier” and “Love, Death, and the Astrodome” both explore similar themes. McMurtry says that we must come to grips with the reality that the West has finally been won, and that the wild untamed frontier is now just a memory. However, along with the frontier, so too has the frontier way of life, agrarian society, and the American cowboy.
The essay “Cowboys, Movies, Myths, and Cadillacs” explores the artistic elements of the Cowboy. Here in this essay McMurtry shows how modern audiences would rather see a gunfighter than a true cowpoke. McMurtry shows how our hero’s have shifted from frontiersman and pioneers to action stars dressed up as cowboys. Almost ironically McMurtry says that the spaghetti Western is as much a valid form of art as any other recognized art, and that it’s okay to have art that you can enjoy without engaging your brain. He goes on to point out that the Gunfighter is as removed from our society as the cowboy and that they both hold fictional status in the American narrative. “Southwestern Literature?” carries this theme into an examination of wether or not Southwestern literature should be viewed as art and the realism of the subject matter.
“Eros in Archer County” was by far my least favorite of these essays. It was weird, and sensual, and diminutive. Someone recently told me that there is a lot of recent scholarship on whether or not McMurtry should be seen as a LGBTQ+ icon. And one of the other essays (either “Myths” or Literature?”) McMurtry talks about rape culture and sex in Western Fiction, and that was incredibly off putting. For as much as I recall the most conservative men in my life promoting McMurtry, it is clear that he is far more promiscuous than some people would let on or like to believe.
My favorite essay was “a Handful of Roses” where McMurtry talks about the culture of different cities in Texas. It’s wild how prophetic some of these essays are. If this was an indictment on the present culture of Dallas I would believe it. But this was written years ago.
The final essay was the weirdest and probably the most well written. It’s a weird history of Texas and specifically Archer County that is told through generations.
The work was incredibly well written and well anthologized. The editors presented these works in a thoughtful and engaging order. It’s a shame I didn’t like them. I just couldn’t find myself enjoying something this hopeless.
I have read very little McMurtry but Hannah has inspired me to explore the great Texan author. I knew I wanted to split up my theology readings with something different and Texas’ recent birthday felt like a perfect occasion to start a collection of essays on the state.
“In a Narrow Grave” was a wonderfully written collection of essays by the great Larry McMurtry. It’s odd how at once strikingly similar the collection of essays was to something you might expect to read from Wendell Berry. The work longs for a place that no longer exists, and may not have ever. The work calls people back to a simpler time. And the work watches an agrarian society age into something unrecognizable by our forefathers. However, where Berry is woefully optimistic, McMurtry almost has no hope.
This may have been one of the saddest collection of essays I have ever read. The first essay, “Here’s HUD in your Eye” is essentially a post mortem for Texas and the American cowboy. McMurtry sees Texas turning into a mini aped version of California. It’s unreal how similar McMurtry sounds like my friends who live in Austin today. “A Look at the Lost Frontier” and “Love, Death, and the Astrodome” both explore similar themes. McMurtry says that we must come to grips with the reality that the West has finally been won, and that the wild untamed frontier is now just a memory. However, along with the frontier, so too has the frontier way of life, agrarian society, and the American cowboy.
The essay “Cowboys, Movies, Myths, and Cadillacs” explores the artistic elements of the Cowboy. Here in this essay McMurtry shows how modern audiences would rather see a gunfighter than a true cowpoke. McMurtry shows how our hero’s have shifted from frontiersman and pioneers to action stars dressed up as cowboys. Almost ironically McMurtry says that the spaghetti Western is as much a valid form of art as any other recognized art, and that it’s okay to have art that you can enjoy without engaging your brain. He goes on to point out that the Gunfighter is as removed from our society as the cowboy and that they both hold fictional status in the American narrative. “Southwestern Literature?” carries this theme into an examination of wether or not Southwestern literature should be viewed as art and the realism of the subject matter.
“Eros in Archer County” was by far my least favorite of these essays. It was weird, and sensual, and diminutive. Someone recently told me that there is a lot of recent scholarship on whether or not McMurtry should be seen as a LGBTQ+ icon. And one of the other essays (either “Myths” or Literature?”) McMurtry talks about rape culture and sex in Western Fiction, and that was incredibly off putting. For as much as I recall the most conservative men in my life promoting McMurtry, it is clear that he is far more promiscuous than some people would let on or like to believe.
My favorite essay was “a Handful of Roses” where McMurtry talks about the culture of different cities in Texas. It’s wild how prophetic some of these essays are. If this was an indictment on the present culture of Dallas I would believe it. But this was written years ago.
The final essay was the weirdest and probably the most well written. It’s a weird history of Texas and specifically Archer County that is told through generations.
The work was incredibly well written and well anthologized. The editors presented these works in a thoughtful and engaging order. It’s a shame I didn’t like them. I just couldn’t find myself enjoying something this hopeless.
May 27, 2008
In the whole, I really liked this book of McMurtry's essays. I enjoyed it in the beginning and I enjoyed it in the end. The middle, especially where he expounded on his opinion of the cities of Houston, Dallas and Austin impressed me less. I suppose I took exception to his rather arrogant dismissal of any worth found in the cities. McMurtry is a great story-teller, even when writing non-fiction about his travels and his times. This book of essays shone with his keen eye for people... the general public in his travels in the beginning of the book and his family in particular at the end. It's absolutely worth the read.
October 15, 2016
In McMurtry’s 1960s essay collection, I got a peek at the Texas of my parents’ time. Most of what he said rang true for me. He got a little sideways on East Texas, but that’s natural. He’s from West Texas, and East and West Texas are as different as Southern and Northern California.
As someone born in the time he writes about, I saw the tail end of what McMurtry focuses on -- the end of cowboy culture as it transitioned to suburban culture. My ancestors on both sides of the family (German and Scots) quit ranching and farming in the early 20th century, as did McMurtry’s. They all went to the suburbs, or to small towns that, by the 1970s, were imitating suburbs.
(There’s a reason both suburbs and small towns are conservative. They’re settled by the same people.)
I never intended to be a Texas writer, but after reading McMurtry’s take on his home state, I get why it happens. There’s a culture here that shapes how you see the world, even if (like me) you’ve lived in eight other states. Joyce wrote about Dublin while living in Paris. McMurtry wrote about Texas while living in DC. You just can’t get away from it.
In a Narrow Grave offers insight to Texas, both from a certain window of time during the LBJ administration, and universally. I recommend it.
As someone born in the time he writes about, I saw the tail end of what McMurtry focuses on -- the end of cowboy culture as it transitioned to suburban culture. My ancestors on both sides of the family (German and Scots) quit ranching and farming in the early 20th century, as did McMurtry’s. They all went to the suburbs, or to small towns that, by the 1970s, were imitating suburbs.
(There’s a reason both suburbs and small towns are conservative. They’re settled by the same people.)
I never intended to be a Texas writer, but after reading McMurtry’s take on his home state, I get why it happens. There’s a culture here that shapes how you see the world, even if (like me) you’ve lived in eight other states. Joyce wrote about Dublin while living in Paris. McMurtry wrote about Texas while living in DC. You just can’t get away from it.
In a Narrow Grave offers insight to Texas, both from a certain window of time during the LBJ administration, and universally. I recommend it.
April 8, 2023
I added this to my list after he died, hoping to sample a famous American writer without committing to the many hundreds of pages of a classic like Lonesome Dove. Having read this, I’ll agree with his own words, “One of my covert purposes in writing this book was to find out for myself if nonfiction could be as interesting and as rich a mode as fiction,” which he himself admits, for him, is not.
His voice is so wry and thoughtful while describing such mundane moments, I absolutely loved reading him, even if the content here doesn’t leave much of an impression beyond his love/hate relationship with Texas as both myth and place, both past and present. Guess I’ll have to pick up one of his novels someday after all to experience him at his best.
His voice is so wry and thoughtful while describing such mundane moments, I absolutely loved reading him, even if the content here doesn’t leave much of an impression beyond his love/hate relationship with Texas as both myth and place, both past and present. Guess I’ll have to pick up one of his novels someday after all to experience him at his best.
January 18, 2024
His essay on the Houston astrodome was hilarious. I imagine that essay has the same appeal as David Foster Wallace writing about going a cruise ship in “A Supposedly Fun Thing…” (though I haven’t read that book yet to say for sure)
November 6, 2023
I needed to read this. Overall, McMurtry captures the Lone Star State's breathing mysterious cultural contradictions that touch upon class, gender, and race (the treatment of which align with essays published in the 1960s). But, only having grown up in Texas in the 1980s and a bit of the 90s, I can testify that these essays resonate and are soberingly prescient.
August 24, 2023
I can read McMurtry roasting Austin, Texas all day
November 29, 2015
Naturally the infamously unsentimental author of the "Ever a Bridegroom" essay on the deplorable state of Texas literature would be loath to contain his opinions to that single 1981 broadside. Published in 1968, this essay collection, which is really a single meandering intellectual journey occasionally interrupted by chapter breaks, moves from film to literature to travel to family history, but its subject is always McMurtry and his thoughts on Texas, both as a real place and as a subject. And, as Texas contains multitudes, so does this book, as it contains his thoughts on everything from cowboy movies, like the adaptation of his novel Horseman, Pass By into the film Hud, to cowboy cities like his own beloved Houston, at the time in its rapid transitional phase from collecting the dregs of the frontier to the home of the Astrodome. What makes his writing different from the countless others who have unleashed their thoughtless gushing, positive or negative, about Texas is that he's always aware that while sentimentality might be a great thing to feel, unless it's presented honestly it will always seem cheap.
For example, his decidedly equivocal thoughts on the great Texas literary trinity of Dobie, Webb, and Bedichek might have seemed sacrilegious at the time, when the three were getting schools, buildings, and professorial chairs named after them. However, the better part of a half-century later, his assessments seem pretty accurate, particularly in how difficult it can be for literary forces like Dobie to capture their spoken voices in the written word:
"From what one has heard he was a great raconteur. Unfortunately, great raconteurs who are also writers are all too often sloppy when they go to write down the stories they tell so well. At heart they are usually impatient with the written word and feel that it is a weak substitute for the human voice. In their hands it usually is. The labor of typing out a story that could be told effortlessly and pleasantly, in appreciative company, often wreaks havoc with their prose."
This is indeed a real problem for anyone wanting to capture in words the true energy of human interaction, although interestingly, McMurtry's own fiction usually features characters who are not known for their loquacity. When someone remarks on what a pleasant day it is out in the Hill Country, the conversation is easy and natural, but often when that same sentiment is put on the page it can seem contrived and artificial. This is most obvious when it comes to that "everything's bigger in Texas" style of idle braggartry, which McMurtry takes a blessedly dim view of. The contrast between how we see our state and what outsiders see is amusingly highlighted in the first essay, where the locals of a tiny Texas town are star-struck by the arrival of Paul Newman filming Hud. Even though McMurtry is from that country and culture (more specifically Wichita Falls, which stars in a moving essay on his own family history at the end), he has no illusions that the townsfolk are any kind of "salt of the earth" types.
I particularly enjoyed his roadtrip from Houston down to Brownsville and up to the Panhandle, but I was unavoidably reminded of Charles Portis' similar "An Auto Odyssey through Darkest Baja", which is quite a bit funnier, although not set in Texas (in fact McMurtry's lack of humor other than a somewhat jaded dryness will probably strike many as more condescending than anything else). Portis, who was from Arkansas, would probably be quite amused by the description of the fiddling competition in east Texas, which contains many of the same characters that Arkansas does. Beginning in Houston, the story makes a nice contrast to the essay on the Astrodome, which has a good discussion of why that ugly, sprawling, charmless city is still McMurtry's favorite town in the state. And while as an Austinite I don't appreciate his jabs at our pseudo-intellectual culture, the man has a right to his opinion (and at least he's not as scathing towards us as he is to the desperately insecure city of Dallas).
For all his strengths as an essayist, it's clear why he's felt that his main calling is as a novelist. I really enjoyed these pieces, but he finds the most appropriate analogy himself:
"To put it in imagery more appropriate to my immediate subject: nonfiction is a pleasant way to walk, but the novel puts one horseback, and what cowboy, symbolic or real, would walk when he could ride?"
For example, his decidedly equivocal thoughts on the great Texas literary trinity of Dobie, Webb, and Bedichek might have seemed sacrilegious at the time, when the three were getting schools, buildings, and professorial chairs named after them. However, the better part of a half-century later, his assessments seem pretty accurate, particularly in how difficult it can be for literary forces like Dobie to capture their spoken voices in the written word:
"From what one has heard he was a great raconteur. Unfortunately, great raconteurs who are also writers are all too often sloppy when they go to write down the stories they tell so well. At heart they are usually impatient with the written word and feel that it is a weak substitute for the human voice. In their hands it usually is. The labor of typing out a story that could be told effortlessly and pleasantly, in appreciative company, often wreaks havoc with their prose."
This is indeed a real problem for anyone wanting to capture in words the true energy of human interaction, although interestingly, McMurtry's own fiction usually features characters who are not known for their loquacity. When someone remarks on what a pleasant day it is out in the Hill Country, the conversation is easy and natural, but often when that same sentiment is put on the page it can seem contrived and artificial. This is most obvious when it comes to that "everything's bigger in Texas" style of idle braggartry, which McMurtry takes a blessedly dim view of. The contrast between how we see our state and what outsiders see is amusingly highlighted in the first essay, where the locals of a tiny Texas town are star-struck by the arrival of Paul Newman filming Hud. Even though McMurtry is from that country and culture (more specifically Wichita Falls, which stars in a moving essay on his own family history at the end), he has no illusions that the townsfolk are any kind of "salt of the earth" types.
I particularly enjoyed his roadtrip from Houston down to Brownsville and up to the Panhandle, but I was unavoidably reminded of Charles Portis' similar "An Auto Odyssey through Darkest Baja", which is quite a bit funnier, although not set in Texas (in fact McMurtry's lack of humor other than a somewhat jaded dryness will probably strike many as more condescending than anything else). Portis, who was from Arkansas, would probably be quite amused by the description of the fiddling competition in east Texas, which contains many of the same characters that Arkansas does. Beginning in Houston, the story makes a nice contrast to the essay on the Astrodome, which has a good discussion of why that ugly, sprawling, charmless city is still McMurtry's favorite town in the state. And while as an Austinite I don't appreciate his jabs at our pseudo-intellectual culture, the man has a right to his opinion (and at least he's not as scathing towards us as he is to the desperately insecure city of Dallas).
For all his strengths as an essayist, it's clear why he's felt that his main calling is as a novelist. I really enjoyed these pieces, but he finds the most appropriate analogy himself:
"To put it in imagery more appropriate to my immediate subject: nonfiction is a pleasant way to walk, but the novel puts one horseback, and what cowboy, symbolic or real, would walk when he could ride?"
June 28, 2021
Uneven and cranky. But he's REALLY good at cranky, so there's that. There is also so much sorrow in McMurtry for the Texas that probably never was, but he is so good at it. And I will forgive much for the man who wrote Lonesome Dove.
May 28, 2020
More than fifty years after its first publication, McMurtry's book of essays on Texas and the death of cowboy culture still has a lot to offer. Not least of its virtues is McMurtry's sharp humor and ability to craft a phrase that both makes the reader chuckle and skewers the target of his observation. Although he occasionally lets his humor turn mean, as in his observations of a town in East Texas (a region more aligned with the South than with the Western ethos of McMurtry's part of the state), he usually deploys his wit judiciously and to good effect.
The essays here are uneven, as the author himself acknowledges. But there's something for everyone, too: sociological observations, literary critique, history, a view of Hollywood in the 60s (or as much of it as came to Texas to film Hud), an unblushing and riotously funny examination of the sexual mores of mid-century rural Texas, and a self-aware nostalgia for the passing of an age, for the seemingly bad deal of trading the cowboy mythos, as problematic as it may be, for the banality of suburban homogeneity.
I, for one, really enjoy McMurtry's voice and perspective in this collection. I like that he gives a feeling of what life was like in Texas before I was born and that I find myself looking up people and places as I read, trying to assimilate as much as I can of what he offers. As someone from a state often maligned in ways similar to Texas, I appreciate McMurtry's ability to evoke the distinctions between parts of his state that might look very much alike to an outsider and his willingness to address the bad as well as the good.
Even in his early years as a writer (he'd written three novels before this first foray into nonfiction), McMurtry had a way of putting the reader just where he wants them, so he can show them a scene from a new angle. He manages to combine the bluntness of someone raised on the plains with the poetic language of someone who loves words and works hard to get them just right.
The essays here are uneven, as the author himself acknowledges. But there's something for everyone, too: sociological observations, literary critique, history, a view of Hollywood in the 60s (or as much of it as came to Texas to film Hud), an unblushing and riotously funny examination of the sexual mores of mid-century rural Texas, and a self-aware nostalgia for the passing of an age, for the seemingly bad deal of trading the cowboy mythos, as problematic as it may be, for the banality of suburban homogeneity.
I, for one, really enjoy McMurtry's voice and perspective in this collection. I like that he gives a feeling of what life was like in Texas before I was born and that I find myself looking up people and places as I read, trying to assimilate as much as I can of what he offers. As someone from a state often maligned in ways similar to Texas, I appreciate McMurtry's ability to evoke the distinctions between parts of his state that might look very much alike to an outsider and his willingness to address the bad as well as the good.
Even in his early years as a writer (he'd written three novels before this first foray into nonfiction), McMurtry had a way of putting the reader just where he wants them, so he can show them a scene from a new angle. He manages to combine the bluntness of someone raised on the plains with the poetic language of someone who loves words and works hard to get them just right.
August 12, 2016
I read this because I was told it informed McMurtry's early writing. It is largely about the cowboy's migration from the plains to the cities, the lives they formerly led compared to the ones they're forced to live now (in 1968, anyway), and how the plains are currently surveyed by "paper riders" like McMurtry himself.
At best, it's uneven - even McMurtry admits his limited capacity to write non-fiction. Such an admission is enough for me to not recommend the book to most readers - and then I'd offer only an unenthusiastic recommendation to McMurtry's loyal fans.
McMurtry's fiction is nothing short of outstanding. His characterizations, use of setting, dialogue and structure is uniformly confident, and out of 30 novels, there are few I haven't immensely enjoyed. His non-fiction, however, is stilted and thick. I'm tempted to attribute McMurtry's condescending tone or pedantic displays herein to his then-fairly fresh success as a young novelist.
I found only one essay, "Eros in Archer County," truly worth reading. Other essays on Houston and McMurtry's family are fine enough, though only interesting because of McMurtry's stature as an author.
At best, it's uneven - even McMurtry admits his limited capacity to write non-fiction. Such an admission is enough for me to not recommend the book to most readers - and then I'd offer only an unenthusiastic recommendation to McMurtry's loyal fans.
McMurtry's fiction is nothing short of outstanding. His characterizations, use of setting, dialogue and structure is uniformly confident, and out of 30 novels, there are few I haven't immensely enjoyed. His non-fiction, however, is stilted and thick. I'm tempted to attribute McMurtry's condescending tone or pedantic displays herein to his then-fairly fresh success as a young novelist.
I found only one essay, "Eros in Archer County," truly worth reading. Other essays on Houston and McMurtry's family are fine enough, though only interesting because of McMurtry's stature as an author.
June 8, 2008
Ronni gave me this & warned me about some of Larry's frank sexist & racist perceptions. It was written in 1968. That aside, I really dug it. I probably would have never picked it up if it hadn't been handed to me but it came at a good time. His takes on Texas cities, particularly Houston & San Antonio, provided useful and amusing knowledge of the modern history of Texas. The essay on the building of the Astrodome would be appreciated by any Houstonian. I found that he and I had come to a lot of the same conclusions about our fair state and its people...which leads me to believe that they are true! I skipped over much of the literary talk about the who's who (or the who WAS who) of the Texas writers scene as his take on literature then seems pretty limited. The essay about driving all over Texas made me want to do the same...and much of the scenery he describes is exactly the same today.
February 6, 2014
The final chapter, about Johnny McMurtry's last reunion at Clarendon, broke my heart.
"The family stood awkwardly around the car, looking now at Uncle Johnny, now at the shadow-flecked plains, and they were as close to a tragic recognition as they would ever be: for to them he had always been the darling, young Adonis, and most of them would never see him alive again. There were no words--they were not a wordy people. Aunt Ida returned with her purse and Uncle Johnny's last young grin blended with his grimace as he began the painful task of fitting himself into the car. In a few minutes, the Cadillac had disappeared behind the first brown ridge, and the family was left with its silence and the fading day."
"The family stood awkwardly around the car, looking now at Uncle Johnny, now at the shadow-flecked plains, and they were as close to a tragic recognition as they would ever be: for to them he had always been the darling, young Adonis, and most of them would never see him alive again. There were no words--they were not a wordy people. Aunt Ida returned with her purse and Uncle Johnny's last young grin blended with his grimace as he began the painful task of fitting himself into the car. In a few minutes, the Cadillac had disappeared behind the first brown ridge, and the family was left with its silence and the fading day."
September 16, 2023
Larry McMurtry is one of my favorite writers period. He’s such a talented writer, and nobody captures the dusty remoteness of small-town Texas like he does. I read this on a trip to Big Bend National Park, and this was such a conversation starter. Everyone wanted to talk about Larry McMurtry and how amazing he is.
This is an interesting little collection of essays.
I recommend this book along with a few others and suggestions for those traveling to the Marfa/Big Bend National Park area in my blog. Check it out here: https://welltraveledwellread.blogspot....
This is an interesting little collection of essays.
I recommend this book along with a few others and suggestions for those traveling to the Marfa/Big Bend National Park area in my blog. Check it out here: https://welltraveledwellread.blogspot....
September 16, 2008
This version is a reprint of McMurtry's original book of essays on Texas. Texas has grown up a lot since 1968, and that makes McMurtry's essays seem dated, even after an updated introduction.
Only the last essay - Take My Saddle From The Wall: A Valediction - really held my interest, as I was wanting to read more about Uncle Johnny and the McMurtry brothers, now long gone, but who opened up the territory.
Less interesting is McMurtry's old bones to pick with Austin, Houston and Dallas -- he seems to like San Antonio.
Only the last essay - Take My Saddle From The Wall: A Valediction - really held my interest, as I was wanting to read more about Uncle Johnny and the McMurtry brothers, now long gone, but who opened up the territory.
Less interesting is McMurtry's old bones to pick with Austin, Houston and Dallas -- he seems to like San Antonio.
June 4, 2009
The essay on the Astrodome is one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life - he SLAMS Houston.
The topics here are disparate, and some of the essays are pretty boring, like the one about the move 'Hud', but McMurtry's hilarious bitterness is worth reading it from cover to cover.
The topics here are disparate, and some of the essays are pretty boring, like the one about the move 'Hud', but McMurtry's hilarious bitterness is worth reading it from cover to cover.
January 23, 2016
Written during Lyndon Johnson's presidency. Book really catches you about halfway through . . . one of many non-fiction titles from a very popular Texas author and novelist -- since I know virtually nothing about Texas, this was a great way to be introduced.
November 18, 2013
A collection of observations on movies, family, mid-century Texan culture and human nature. A must read for any McMurtry fan. Or a fan of families. Or Texas. Or Human Nature.
July 5, 2018
First and last essays the best.
November 13, 2020
The biggest truth in this book comes on the second printed page of the volume, in the first of a bunch of introductions, this one written by Diana Osanna, who, it turns out, writes screenplays with the latter-day McMurtry. She says when she first met him, he was “holding court” in a restaurant in Tucson.
Holding Court is what this book is all about.
Mr. McMurty is an intellectual; he earned it by doing the requisite reading and the thinking. He has plied his lofty office, in this brief collection of essays anyway, against his mother- fatherland. Like Clyde Edgerton did of Eastern North Carolina, McMurtry has carried his teasing love (?) too far: all the people are stupid, or ugly, or both. The pie is stale. And nothing is the way it used to be. Except the cowboys, who never were the way they used to be.
But to be fair, nobody really fares very well. Californians, Mexicans, Southerners. They all have their dose of down-the-nose bemused disdain.
I was fully prepared to chalk this up to overuse of the folly license granted to youth. He was 31 at most when he wrote this. He probably really thought, at the time, that someone would actually care a hoot in hell about what he and his buddies meant when the called each other ‘motherfucker’ on the baseball fields of post-war Archer County, Texas now 70 years ago.
However upon reviewing a number of ‘Best of Larry McMurtry’ lists, I find this work cited repeatedly, so this might be as good as it gets*, apart from Lonesome Dove, which won the Pulitzer in 1986. I made a run at that book once a long time ago. My recollection was that all of the characters (mostly men. Cowboys, I believe.) were constantly weeping.
Final thoughts: 1. The preoccupation with the book is that The Real Texas is Lost, which strikes me as unenlightened, to say nothing of needless melancholy. 2. The voice McMurtry is reaching for, I think, is the put-on grandeur of speech that Mark Twain sometimes used in his essays, but he falls a bit short and ends up just sounding pompous instead.
I have more, but that would just be piling on.
___
* Check out the Goodreads reviews of The Last Picture Show sometime.
November 5, 2021
I used to live in west Texas, then north of Dallas, and I must still be grappling with what Texas means because whenever I come across an article or book about the big state, I take notice. This led me to purchase the October 24, 2019 edition of NYRB at Barnes and Noble. For inexplicable reasons, I did not finish the article then, but recently found it, along with McMurtry's book, under a neglected stack of other items. (https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2019... ). I have read several of McMurtry's books, fiction and essays, so I was interested to learn what he had to say back in 1968. Dianna Ossana writes in the introduction that this volume is a fine companion to McMurtry's more recent Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen. I agree with her.
For the uninitiated, McMurtry has opinions that often run contrary to majority opinion. This characteristic makes him engaging. He also writes with a unique perspective. He grew up in Archer County on a ranch and comes from an extended family of ranchers. Ranchers may not be confused with farmers. Two very different set of mindsets and priorities. McMurtry also knew real cowboys and by the time he was in high school he was aware that Texas was irrevocably changing. The rural life was losing to the city/suburban life. Money, and the ostentatious display of it was coming into prominence for the growing middle class.
Through his book, McMurtry looks critically at his home state, the difference between West and East Texas, Houston's then new Astrodome, the myth of the west, cowboys, horses and women. He examines three Texas authors and how they write about their home state.
McMurtry provides the perspective of a man who is aware that he is living through a significant period of change in many facets of life. There is much to learn from here. And, if you are of a mind to, plenty to disagree with here too. I don't think McMurtry would have it any other way.
For the uninitiated, McMurtry has opinions that often run contrary to majority opinion. This characteristic makes him engaging. He also writes with a unique perspective. He grew up in Archer County on a ranch and comes from an extended family of ranchers. Ranchers may not be confused with farmers. Two very different set of mindsets and priorities. McMurtry also knew real cowboys and by the time he was in high school he was aware that Texas was irrevocably changing. The rural life was losing to the city/suburban life. Money, and the ostentatious display of it was coming into prominence for the growing middle class.
Through his book, McMurtry looks critically at his home state, the difference between West and East Texas, Houston's then new Astrodome, the myth of the west, cowboys, horses and women. He examines three Texas authors and how they write about their home state.
McMurtry provides the perspective of a man who is aware that he is living through a significant period of change in many facets of life. There is much to learn from here. And, if you are of a mind to, plenty to disagree with here too. I don't think McMurtry would have it any other way.
February 26, 2020
That last essay though...
...It was 5 stars. McMurtry writing about the fading West is worth the price of the ticket. But I’m a sap and lap that stuff up like the dog laps bacon fat from the pan. The book overall is good. It gives a thorough impression of the thoughts and feelings of the venerable 1968 model McMurtry. That year-model was feeling modest success and seemed at times to be seeking admission to the Church of the Snobby New York Literati. The price of admission appears to have been punching down on your less intellectually gifted fellow Texans. They were (and are) easy targets and it felt like McMurtry was piling on in order to impress his coastal peers. I forgive him though. Hell, I appreciate it. His faults make him human. The book, overall, is a valuable insight about Texas and Texans from the perspective of an intelligent and insightful contemporary author. In many ways, it was a peek back in time. For a history nerd, that is fun. Makes one want to take a comparative road trip. But that last essay, though. It was bacon grease for the starving mutt.
...It was 5 stars. McMurtry writing about the fading West is worth the price of the ticket. But I’m a sap and lap that stuff up like the dog laps bacon fat from the pan. The book overall is good. It gives a thorough impression of the thoughts and feelings of the venerable 1968 model McMurtry. That year-model was feeling modest success and seemed at times to be seeking admission to the Church of the Snobby New York Literati. The price of admission appears to have been punching down on your less intellectually gifted fellow Texans. They were (and are) easy targets and it felt like McMurtry was piling on in order to impress his coastal peers. I forgive him though. Hell, I appreciate it. His faults make him human. The book, overall, is a valuable insight about Texas and Texans from the perspective of an intelligent and insightful contemporary author. In many ways, it was a peek back in time. For a history nerd, that is fun. Makes one want to take a comparative road trip. But that last essay, though. It was bacon grease for the starving mutt.
September 12, 2021
An uneven and somewhat inessential, collection of essays, In a Narrow Grave is interesting as a period piece and as an introduction to McMurtry’s self admitted middling non-fiction writing.
This is bookended by the best essays, with one or two other enjoyable ones betwixt. The descriptions of natural Texas are the strong suit here, but The author begins to flail when he tries to insert himself in the pantheon of Texas literature. McMurtry is certainly well read, and his fiction will do just that on it’s own, but his intellectualism here comes across as pomposity at times. There’s an unfortunate “of the time” whiff of misogyny and racism at times too. While I don’t think Larry was a full blown racist/sexist, I think the Larry in these essays is a product of his environment.
Otherwise, In a Narrow Grave has held up for the most part, despite the aforementioned flaws, but this one is probably not for everyone. This is a book more for fans of Larry McMurtry, or someone deeply interested in Texas culture warts and all.
This is bookended by the best essays, with one or two other enjoyable ones betwixt. The descriptions of natural Texas are the strong suit here, but The author begins to flail when he tries to insert himself in the pantheon of Texas literature. McMurtry is certainly well read, and his fiction will do just that on it’s own, but his intellectualism here comes across as pomposity at times. There’s an unfortunate “of the time” whiff of misogyny and racism at times too. While I don’t think Larry was a full blown racist/sexist, I think the Larry in these essays is a product of his environment.
Otherwise, In a Narrow Grave has held up for the most part, despite the aforementioned flaws, but this one is probably not for everyone. This is a book more for fans of Larry McMurtry, or someone deeply interested in Texas culture warts and all.
June 30, 2018
"A border is always a temptation."
I love that line. I also love many of McMurtry's observations and sentences, though not as much as his fiction, especially Lonesome Dove, but several of the essays contained within are entertaining, and, although dated, knowledgeable and opinionated, I suppose there are many in Texas, especially in Houston and Dallas, who might not be so enthralled with their literary son, and some of his obsessions, but he does enjoy pulling out his pen and popping some bubbles. I enjoyed best his sojourns through the state. A few discussions may be best left away from younger eyes (and I was a bit started that, though likely true, they were not blue-lined by an editor). I think those in San Antonio will love him best.
I love that line. I also love many of McMurtry's observations and sentences, though not as much as his fiction, especially Lonesome Dove, but several of the essays contained within are entertaining, and, although dated, knowledgeable and opinionated, I suppose there are many in Texas, especially in Houston and Dallas, who might not be so enthralled with their literary son, and some of his obsessions, but he does enjoy pulling out his pen and popping some bubbles. I enjoyed best his sojourns through the state. A few discussions may be best left away from younger eyes (and I was a bit started that, though likely true, they were not blue-lined by an editor). I think those in San Antonio will love him best.
November 1, 2018
Originally penned in 1968, these essays have aged well and carry the patina of fine antique silver—even if some of the details have now flaked off. McMurtry writes from the vantage point of having grown up with a dying breed: the last generation of cowboys who saw trail driver push cattle from Texas to railroad towns in the north. The generation McMurtry writes about—the passing of the gods, he calls it—includes his father and uncles, who became part of the transition from open ranges and trail drives to fenced in sections and trucking beef to market. Though much of West Texas remains as it was in the past, McMurtry's book is a poignant look at a changing Texas from raw frontier state to urbane city state and the passing of horsemen who use to ride wild and free.
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