Lonesome Dove

Thanks to antibiotic insomnia and a sprawling day fielding repairmen, I finished Larry McMurtry's epic this afternoon. It was no coincidence that I used a publicity card from John Sayles' Moment In The Sun as a bookmark; both go to explicit ends to delineate the sum of toil necessary to tame this land and thus allow our present suburban ennui. Consider me grateful.

I liked the novel, though I had a problem with Jake's character, especially his shooting of the young girl's husband. The episode appeared forced and acted as authorial evidence that it was okay that his friends hung him. That synopsis doesn't extend justice to the tempo of the text, the static detail which captures and inspires. McMurty also has a dilemma with the emotionally detached characters (just about everyone save Gus and Clara) being placed in gruesome, challenging situations and the reader has little to do but gasp.