Book Club: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

Four weeks ago, our book club met to discuss Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I remembered the hype surrounding the book when the tv miniseries premiered in the 1980’s, but I never had any desire to read it. Fast forward to this year and selecting titles for book club and I was looking for books in different genres to nudge myself out of my comfort zone. When I saw that this had been described as the western for people who don’t like westerns, I thought I would give it a chance. Larry McMurtry won the Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove and it is currently up for PBS’s America’s Great Read program. Unfortunately, I only had one person come to the meeting, but we managed to have a lot to discuss.

The two main characters, Augustus and Call are retired Texas Rangers, convinced by one of their old colleagues to go to Montana with their horses and cattle. They are lured by the promise of unspoiled land and the descriptions of green grass and snow. The characters are all well-drawn and there are touches of humor and evocative imagery which stays with you.

One of the questions is what Lonesome Dove means for the characters as it is a place no one wants to stay in but can’t completely separate from. It is a place they all start in or have a connection to. I thought that it was a symbol of the importance of community and our connections to one another. I had refrained from reading the introduction so as not to spoil anything, but the other member did and the author wrote that the Lonesome Dove is the character of young Newt, an innocent alone. I was disappointed to learn that Newt dies in later books as he was an interesting character and I wanted him to succeed.

We decided that the female characters were the strongest in the book and appeared to be the most capable of surviving in the wild west. The men all long for the freedom of living on their own terms in the wilderness, but they are inexorably drawn to women and community. The world depicted in this novel is rough and dangerous. It made me think about the pioneer spirit and the particular mythology and romance surrounding the wild west and cowboys. In a land as vast as America, there is something appealing about the idea of everyone being able to spread out on their own parcel. This book both honored that myth and tried to offer a realistic depiction.

 

 

Book Review: Bellewether by Susanna Kearsley

I received an advanced free copy of this book from Net Galley in exchange for my honest review.

Susanna Kearsley does it again! Like other books she has written, there is a historical mystery, family secrets and romance. The historical portion of the story is set during the Seven Year’s War between England and France over the territories in the New World. It is not a time period I knew much about so it was interesting to see how it was for the colonial citizens to be caught in a war between two world powers and to see how these seeds lead to the American Revolution.

One of the strengths of Kearsley’s work is her ability to show how the lives of real, complicated people get muddled through historical records and family legends. She is also very skilled in drawing real characters and settings and weaving an evocative mystery. Even though there are no real surprises as the plot evolves, the conclusion is every bit as satisfying.

I would recommend this book for fans of historical fiction and family mysteries as well as for fans of Diana Gabaldon.