The author of Lonesome Dove and other great novels about the American West takes readers on a non-fiction exploration of his favorite region, sharing eleven essays originally published in The New Yorker. The well-known author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove and other popular novels, McMurtry has also written numerous essays and reviews. Film Flam: Essays on Hollywood, a collection of his pieces on scriptwriting and other aspects of Tinseltown, was well received. This new collection focuses on the literature and writers of the American West and on the West itself, considering topics such as popular entertainers (e.g., Buffalo Bill and Annie Oakley), fiction writers (e.g., Zane Grey), and historians (e.g., Angie Debo). McMurtry is extremely knowledgeable about the subjects he covers, and his writing is witty and incisive. The essays were all originally published in the New York Review of Books. Recommended for any academic or larger public library collection interested in the history and literature of the West and especially for libraries where McMurtry's novels are popular. Charlie Cowling, Drake Memorial Lib., SUNY at Brockport Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. Many revisionist historians have embraced McMurtry's works and credit him for demythologizing the West. McMurtry has never been particularly comfortable with their praise. Undoubtedly, he has painted the West and the frontier experience in starker, less romantic shades than traditional Western novelists like Zane Grey. Yet anyone who has read his essays or his classic novels, particularly Lonesome Dove , should be aware of his deep love for western landscapes, his belief in the unique aspects of the western experience, and his fascination with those men and women who endured hardship, changed the land, and were changed by it. In this enthralling collection of his essays, all originally published in the New York Review of Books , McMurtry touches on a broad variety of topics. With both compassion and brilliant critical insight, he illustrates how the best intentions of "friends of the Indians" promoted disastrous policies in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. This treasure will inform and stir the emotions of both western enthusiasts and general readers. Jay Freeman Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved McMurtry is extremely knowledgeable about the subjects he covers. . .his writing is witty and incisive. -- Library Journal, November 1, 2001 Occasional writings on matters western by a noted interpreter of the region. . .McMurtry is an ascended master. -- Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2001 Larry McMurtry is the author of twenty-four novels, including _Lonesome Dove_, winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His non-fiction works include _In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas_ (1989), _Crazy Horse_ (1999), _Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen_ (1999), _Roads: Driving America's Great Highways_ (2000), and, most recently, _Paradise_ (2001). He lives in Archer City, Texas. "In the essays that follow--though I do attempt to acknowledge two remarkable western women, the poet-novelist Janet Lewis (died age ninety-nine) and the historian Angie Debo (died age ninety-eight)--I have not directly concerned myself with literature. Man may have seven ages, but the West has had only three: the age of Heroes (Lewis and Clark), the age of Publicity (Buffalo Bill), and the age of Suburbia, for which the preferred new term is Urban Sprawl. How we got from the first age to the third, and what we destroyed in the process, is a story historians will be worrying for a long time. Myself, I still mainly like to look." from the Introduction Used Book in Good Condition