Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Details
Lonesome Dove is a 1985 epic Western novel by American writer Larry McMurtry. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series and the third installment in the series chronologically. It was a bestseller and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. In 1989, it was adapted as a TV miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall, which won both critical and popular acclaim. McMurtry went on to write a sequel, Streets of Laredo (1993), and two prequels, Dead Man's Walk (1995) and Comanche Moon (1997), all of which were also adapted as TV series.
## Premise
The novel, set in the waning days of the Old West, centers on the relationships between several retired Texas Rangers and their adventures driving a cattle herd from Texas to Montana. The novel contains themes including old age, death, unrequited love, and friendship.
## Conception
The novel initially arose as a screenplay that McMurtry started writing with director Peter Bogdanovich.[1] Originally titled Streets of Laredo, they wrote it with three movie stars in mind: John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda. Warner Bros. liked the script, but the actors were noncommittal, especially Wayne, who was wary of the melancholy nature of the film. McMurtry later bought back the script from the studio for $35,000 for development into a novel, while continuing to write other novels, including the Desert Rose and Cadillac Jack.[2]: 292–306 He received inspiration for the title of the book after seeing the name Lonesome Dove Baptist Church on a bus near Fort Worth.[3] Simon & Schuster bought the novel for $250,000, with Irving Lazar acting as his agent.[2]: 322