Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life and Legacy of Larry McMurtry

This revealing collection compiled by journalist Getschow (editor of The Best American Newspaper Narratives) brings together reflections on Lonesome Dove novelist Larry McMurtry from his friends, family, and fellow writers. A few essays offer literary analyses, such as retired McMurry University library director Joe W. Specht’s piece on McMurtry’s ambivalence toward the energy industry’s grip on Texas, embodied in the Last Picture Show and Texasville character Duane Moore, an oilman who strikes it big in the 1970s before falling oil prices bankrupt him. Most of the selections focus on the author’s personal life, however. In “The Larry McMurtry I Knew,” journalist Skip Hollandsworth remembers the novelist as a curmudgeonly interview subject but gregarious dinner host who would opine on “everything from eighteenth-century Russian poetry to the joys of Dr Pepper.” Mike Evans—a former creative writing student of McMurtry’s in the mid-1960s—recounts free-form classes when he would read aloud from his upcoming novel, The Last Picture Show, or, on one occasion, recite dirty limericks. The elegiac remembrances offer intimate glimpses into McMurtry’s life (collaborator Diana Ossana recalls the “emotional breakdown” he suffered after a heart attack), with no shortage of surprises (two contributors note his “extensive pornography collection”). McMurtry’s fans will want to track this down. (Sept.)