Western Star: The Life and Legends of Larry McMurtry

New York Times reporter Streitfeld (Ursula K. Le Guin: The Last Interview) delivers an entertaining and distinctive biography of novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry, who died in 2021. A longtime friend of McMurtry’s, Stretifeld forgoes comprehensiveness in favor of delving into the writer’s fascination with the West. He establishes McMurtry’s Western bona fides by tracing his family history as hardworking ranchers in the Texas panhandle who “use[d] up all the daylight,” a legacy that informed his preoccupation with the state and influenced his novel Lonesome Dove. Elsewhere, Streitfeld chronicles the making of the film adaptation of The Last Picture Show, McMurtry’s 1966 novel about teens growing up in a small Texas town. Along the way, Streitfeld unravels myths McMurtry created about himself, noting that despite his claims that certain stories were autobiographical, “the search for real-life models in Larry’s works never arrives anywhere definitive.” Drawing on voicemails and personal conversations with McMurtry, Streitfeld brings the writer’s unfiltered voice and unique anecdotes into the narrative, including his dedication to the bookstore he owned in his hometown of Archer City, where he opened boxes and priced books “until his body literally could not do it anymore.” The result is a memorable portrait of a Texas icon. (Mar.)