Whenever somebody that I know offline would ask me what my favorite read of 2010 was (surprisingly a question I hear more offline than online), I without any hesitation or doubt would say Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.  “Really?” and a blank stare is what I would almost always get back. People, this book was AMAZING.  Every 945 pages of it. When it ended, I wished there was another 945 pages. I was not ready to let these characters go!  Lonesome Dove has deservedly been called epic. But what makes a book epic?  I think it’s just one of those things that you know it when you read it. And oh, was this book epic.

Larry McMurtry is a master storyteller.  I was a tad daunted opening that very first page and I do admit that even 200 pages into the book I wondered if anything was ever going to happen.  And even though it was off to a slow start, I wouldn’t wish it any other way. The background characterization that McMurtry gives his essential to the story.

The inside cover of my copy of the book lists the key characters with a short description of each. I loved the summary it gave so am taking the liberty of copying it here for  you.

Augustus McCrae: ex-Texas  Ranger. A fierce fighter, loyal friend, gentle lover, a boisterous spinner of colorful yarns. Gus years for adventure, and is drawn into Woodrow Call’s dream – a cattle drive to Montana, to the free and wild frontier . . .
Woodrow F. Call: Gus’s partner and friend, a driven, demanding man, a leader with no patience for weakness – and a secret sorrow of his own . . .

Jake Spoon: dashing gambler, former comrade-in-arms of Gus and Call, his passions plunge him into a terrifying fate . . .

Clara Allen: the woman of Gus’s young dreams. Out of the frontier’s cruelty and death, she forgers a life as generous, brave and unyielding as the land she learns to love . . .

Blue Duck: a renegade Indian with cunning heart of a vulture. He tortures and ills across the Plains, and savors his victim’s agony . . .

Newt: the brave, bewildered young cowboy who discovers his manhood, and his past, on the hazardous journey into Montana . . .

The Hat Creek Outfit: Jake, Deets, Pea Eye and the Boys . . .  wranglers, tracers and scouts, they follow Gus and Call into the heart of the adventure, through sandstorms, stampedes, bandits, floods and snow . . . living on in the undying legends of the great American frontier.

If you don’t know who these characters are from having read Lonesome Dove yourself, I dare you to love them.  I dare you to hate them.

I picked up this book in every spare moment of my day when I was reading it. And when I wasn’t reading it, I wanted to be reading it. I thought about it constantly.  I know I haven’t gone into all the intricacies of why Lonesome Dove is so amazing but let me tell you simply-  the characters! the story! the love! the friendships! the fighting! the determination! the devotion! the heroes! the outlaws! the whores! the Indians! the frontier! the forging ahead! the friendships again!  And it’s also laugh out loud funny with some great one-liners and some beautiful passages.  Definitely need those lighthearted and thoughtful moments between the gun slinging, the scalping, and the hangings.

Yes, my favorite book of 2010 was unabashedly a Western.  A genre I didn’t really think I read.  But did I tell you I loved this book?  Oh, how I loved Lonesome Dove. Officially one of my most favorite books.  Ever. Do you need more recommendation then that?

(I remember when the mini-series came on TV when I was little and we all watched it together as a family. MUST re-watch it now! )

Links of interest: More book  blogger reviews.
Genre: Historical Fiction, Western
Publisher: Pocket Books. 1985.
Paperback, 945 pages. ISBN 067168390X
Lonesome Dove is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Set in the 1870’s, fifteen year-old Gabriel, his mother and little brother have settled with their new stepfather on a struggling farm in Kansas, where black men aren’t fighting so much against the white folks but rather the land.  Gabriel grows increasingly dissatisfied with his new lot in life and the drudgery of homesteading.  When his orphaned friend James suggests that they get hired on with a group of cowboys headed to Texas, Gabriel abandons his family for the call of adventure.  But what begins as an exciting trek soon turns into much more then the boys bargained for as they come to realize that two of the men are brutal and dangerous.  While Gabriel is trying to leave his past behind him, he faces a future is even worse then he could ever imagine.

The writing in Gabriel’s Story is beautiful.  It made me slow down and savor what I was reading.  And it felt great to slow down.  One such passage:

Gabriel had the feeling that something was slipping away from him.  The earth moved under his feet instead of he over the earth.  He was aware of conversations taking place, but he played no part in them.  He heard Jack express his regrets and say his goodbyes and watched him ride off, slow and quiet but still going.  He heard the snap of Bill’s whip over the oxen and saw them enter the river.  The creatures sank in up to their necks and surged forward in rhythmic thrusts, like aquatic beasts of burden harnessed in a fable from some pre-Biblical time.  Gabriel watched them emerge on the other side and move off.  He saw James’s face before him, troubled almost to tears and filled with questions.  He turned and sought out Marshall and found only the man’s back, some thirty yards away.  He was smoking and talking quietly with Caleb, oblivious of the shift in the earth and as calm as any wayward angel whose work is still blessed by providence.  And still the earth rolled beneath the boy’s feet, like a slowly undulating ocean that did not yet drown him but might at any moment.

The American West was as much a character in this book as anything else.  I love it when the landscape plays such a large part in the story.

The San Juans rose before Gabriel like a great receding barricade conceived by the gods and built of the earth itself.  He knew he would have to learn mountain travel through trial and error.  He could construct an image of what was to come from dimly remembered descriptions, but he felt surer each day that he could complete this journey – if not the whole of it, at least that day’s portion.  He wove his way into the foothills, seeking passage through small gaps in the hillsides, over mounds of wind-scoured sandstone, around tilted slabs of granite.  Each ridge gave way to another and another, each higher than the one before.  He learned to gauge the scale of the peaks only slowly, with his wary progress from base to peak and down again.  He felt minuscule below the mountains, like an ant, a tiny thief crawling over the toes of giants.  Thus he rode or led the horse with hushed respect, as if he feared to wake the mountains, and he listened – at first for signs of other people, but increasingly to the many voices around him.

Gabriel’s Story is a quiet story of one boy’s coming of age in set against a loud backdrop.  I really enjoyed this one although a word of warning:  these cowboys are no saints.  Foul language, murder and rape are very present in the story and served to make me hate these men so much.  Durham did an excellent job portraying just how evil they were and just how intimidated Gabriel was.

So glad I read this one. My short review just doesn’t do this one justice.  Excellent.  Like give it some love excellent.

Gabriel’s Story is  part of my themed reading for the month of February which celebrates Black History Month.  Join me this month as I explore books that celebrate the history of African-Americans.
Links of interest: author Author website, book blogger reviews.
Genre: Historical Fiction, Western (Note: although it features a juvenile character this is not a children’s book)
Publisher: Doubleday. January 16, 2001.
Hardcover, 304 pages. ISBN 0385498144
Gabriel’s Story is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.

Recent immigrants from the Netherlands, Lucas is just getting used to living in a new country, when his parents and little sister die in the 1900 Galveston Hurricane and he’s left orphaned.  His older brother Gil, aged 16, comes home and sells off all of their possessions and takes Lucas to Montana to work on a cattle drive.  The only problem is that Lucas doesn’t know anything about cattle or horses.  In fact, he’s never even ridden a horse.  The cattle drive will take them through the last known location of their cousin Henry, whom Lucas hopes will take him in so he can go back to school.

Gil and Lucas are in constant conflict with each other.  Lucas loves books while Gil can’t see the use.  In comparison, Gil loves everything about cattle drives and Lucas learns that he has a lot to teach him.  Fueled by the books he reads, Lucas wants to be a Pinkerton Agents when he grows up, the detectives who trail and capture outlaws.  Lucas studies all the outlaw wanted posters on the cattle drive and soon finds himself in real danger when he runs into the Sundance Kid and his gang.  The only problem is that nobody believes him, including Gil.  When Lucas’s outfit finds all their horses stolen, including Eb the horse that he has come to love, he will take matters into his own hands and find his Cousin Henry’s whereabouts at the same time.

Longhorns and Outlaws has a lot to think about including emigration, life after a natural disaster, the wild west frontier, life on a cattle drive, outlaws, courage, and what it takes to be a hero.  I found myself getting into it a bit slowly, but once I was able to get going I became really engrossed in the story.  I think this book would have a lot of appeal for younger readers, including reluctant readers and boys.

You can find more information about the Outlaw Book series including a detailed teachers guide to use Longhorns and Outlaws in the classroom on the Cowboy’s and Outlaw’s website.  Also check out the other stops on Linda’s tour.  You can learn more about Linda Aksomitis on her personal website as well.  Linda is simply amazing.  Much of Longhorns and Outlaws is based on Linda’s personal experience as she’s worked with horses and cattle a lot (among all of her other interests!)  Want more?  I’ve got more!  Coming up next an interview with Linda herself.  Lot’s of fun information, watch for it coming right up.

Copyright 2010. Maw Books Blog

Maw Books has an affiliate relationship with several bookstores, including Indiebound, Powell’s, and Amazon . When you buy a product (not just books – any product), via one of my links, Maw Books earns income from the sale and as always, it’s much appreciated as all affiliate income is used to support the blog. There is no cost to you.