This is book #30 of my 2018 Reading Challenge sponsored by
Goodreads.com. I pledged to read
40 books. To make a framework for
the books I would read, I established a reading protocol early in the year to
make book selection easy and organized.
Each book chosen for this challenge must fall into
one of the following categories:
1. Authors recommended by other readers (author must be new to me)
2. Any recommendations by my fellow readers of our online mystery
reading group established in 1993 on Prodigy
3. The next book in a series I have been reading
4. The next book in a series I have abandoned (in an attempt to revive
my interest)
5. A book that references a historic event or period that is not in my
lifetime
6. A book that references any historic event or biographs a famous
person who lived in my lifetime.
7. New mystery author with setting in USA.
8. New mystery author with setting in western Europe.
This novel satisfies Protocol #5.
The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry. (2014)
I started off not liking this book at all. I was unsure if I could really finish
it. Yes, I was ready to let this
book just fade into the sunset on the Texas plains. Then, I did two things:
·
I vowed to read it without comparing it to
Lonesome Dove (Pulitzer Prize winner, Larry McMurtry, 1985 and my favorite novel of all time)
·
I started over with a change of heart and just
read the book.
This McMurtry novel could almost be considered a sequel to
Telegraph Days.(2007) It has cowboys,
historic cattle ranchers, gunfire and Nellie Courtwright who seems to show up
everywhere. She is now in this novel in
Tombstone along with the popular characters of the Wild West.
McMurtry actually uses Nellie to move the novel’s intent along and
surprises us with the ending.
Thinking about the ending still gives me bittersweet angst. No Spoiler—you have to read it for yourself.
Despite the lukewarm reviews that the novel received from
newspapers across the country (including The New York Times) McMurtry is quite transparent in the very beginning of the novel and
describes the novel for what it is—a story or stories of “characters floating
in time”. The
reviewers complaints of no clear story line or cohesiveness is not the intent
of this novel. In fact, the reader may just find him or herself floating through those last days of open frontier, predictable boom towns and a country growing.
Here is what McMurtry says in his introduction:
The Last Kind Words
Saloon is a ballad in prose whose characters are floating in time. Their legends and their lives in
history rarely match. I had the
great Director John Ford* in mind when I wrote this book. He famously said that when you had to
choose between history and legend, print the legend. And so I have done.
Here are some of the characters that appear in this novel,
some are connected, some are not:
Connected characters
Charles
Goodnight, (born March 5, 1836, Macoupin County,
Ill., U.S.—died Dec. 12, 1929), American cattleman, who helped bring law and
order to the Texas panhandle.
He is known as “the father of the Texas Panhandle, however, what might be more familiar is
his invention of the food wagon—now fondly known as “Chuck Wagons”. Lonesome Dove is loosely based on
Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving.
Joseph “Ike” Clanton: (1847-June 1, 1867) One of the loose association of outlaws known as The Cowboys
who clashed with Wyatt, Virgil and Morgan Earp and Doc Holliday. When Wyatt and Jesse Earp and Doc
Holliday arrive in Arizona, Wyatt felt that Ike Clanton was the only one in
town (Tombstone) who would have any interest in shooting him. Present at the gunfight at the OK
Corral but survives.
Billy Clanton:
(1862-October 26, 1881)
William Harrison Clanton was an outlaw Cowboy in Chochise County,
Arizona Territory. He along with
his father Newman Clanton and brother Ike Clanton worked a ranch near the
boomtown of Tombstone, Arizona Territory and stole livestock from Mexico and
later from US ranchers. Killed during the gunfight at the OK Corral.
Johnny Ringo: (1850
– 1882) An American Old West outlaw loosely associated with the Cochise County
Cowboys in frontier Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona Territory, United
States. Main interest was
“cards”. He was involved in some
business deals with Joseph “Ike” Clanton listed above. He was not involved with the gunfight
at the OK Corral. He died at age
32, following bullet wound to right temple, possibly self-inflicted. Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday are
investigated about Ringo’s death, but not charged.
Warren Baxter Earp:
(March 9, 1855 – July 6, 1900) Youngest brother of Wyatt Earp He set up
the saloon in whatever town the Earps chose to occupy. He carried the sign “The Last Kind
Words Saloon” from town to town. He
was not present at the OK Corral when the famous gunfight occurred. He was killed in a bar fight in
Willcox, Arizona in 1900.
Non-connected
characters
Wild Bill Hickok
Buffalo Bill
General Sherman
Brief reference to Billy the Kid.
So in summary:
·
I finished the book.
·
It reads as a floating ballad of characters as
promised.
·
Short vignettes seem to be the pervasive style
throughout the novel.
Was there a symbolic message in the repetitive mention of HATS--maybe!
Hats
described as driven by the wind in Long Grass and in Tombstone. Was the cowboys' era being blown away? Or was it floating? As this book ends, Nellie Courtwright shows up again,
this time she goes to visit Jesse (Josephine) and Wyatt Earp in retirement in San Pedro, California. She
decides to make the trip from LA in her new convertible. She was not wearing a hat. Should she have been wearing a hat it would certainly have
been swirling with the wind. McMurtry closes the novel with this trip symbolizing the end of the cowboys’ wild
west era. No hats allowed.
Favorite quote of the book:
“Last time I rode into this town, it was full of Earps."
Check it out.
_________________________________________
*John Ford was an American film director. He is renowned both for Westerns such
as Stagecoach, The Searchers, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, as well as
adaptations of classic 20th-century American novels such as the film The Grapes
of Wrath. His four Academy Awards for Best Director remain a record.
Thanks to Wikipedia for assisting me in lassoing all these
cowboys and their place in wild west history.
