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Larry McMurtry RIP

OWLVIS

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Al Czervik

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Sophomore year at Southwest Texas State University (1986) Larry McMurtry came to Al's English class to read a few chapters of Lonesome Dove.  He and the lady Professor were friends and was there to share his novel with her classes.   This was a Thursday class so it ran an hour and a half, I stuck around for the next class because the few chapters he read wasn't enough.  He did allow for questions afterwards and was engaging with the students, this was all in a classroom that fit no more than 30 students in Flowers Hall.  One of the better 3 hour learning blocks in young Al's undergraduate education.

 

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Royalfan5

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7 minutes ago, bullzak said:

Last Picture Show or Horseman Pass By for me. 

That something like Lonesome Dove could ever be third on any list says something. 

Also try telling someone that the same person wrote Lonesome Dove and Terms of Endearment. 

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Royalfan5

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I'd also like to mention here that I drove from Lincoln, NE to Giddings via Archer City just so I could visit his bookstore, and take pictures of downtown Archer City. Worth every second of having to drive through SW Oklahoma to do it. Edit: That side trip also introduced me to Ray Wylie Hubbard too

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TwiceHorn

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2 hours ago, Royalfan5 said:

Mine too

Is that the one with the Rice grad student?  That's a goodun.

I didn't realize he was associated with Brokeback.  I suppose even the short story needs a screenwriter.  

Just finished a book of Proulx' short stories, including Brokeback.  They're something else.

RIP.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys

OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys 2061

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I just informed by brother in law of the passing.  He's from Archer City and sort of friendly with McMurtry.  He told me a two things. 1) he just bought first editions of Horseman, Pass By and two other books I can't remember and left them at the book store because the librarian said she'd have Larry sign them.  Doesn't know if he ever got around to it; 2) he was in Tucson and reached out to him for lunch just a few months ago and McMurtry said he couldn't meet up because of COVID.  What an absolute bummer.

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Mrs Whiggins

Mrs Whiggins 13050

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Rest in peace. Always sad when a good writer passes. They live on through their works, but it's not quite the same...

3 hours ago, Royalfan5 said:

I'd also like to mention here that I drove from Lincoln, NE to Giddings via Archer City just so I could visit his bookstore, and take pictures of downtown Archer City. Worth every second of having to drive through SW Oklahoma to do it. Edit: That side trip also introduced me to Ray Wylie Hubbard too

Ahem. I used to live in SW Oklahoma and there's some lovely places there. However, to each their own.

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D_Goose

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RIP. Some very early memories of my parents watching the LD miniseries when it came out back in the day. Didn't think too much about McMurtry again until being re-exposed to him in Don Graham's (also RIP) excellent Southwest Lit class at UT.

4 hours ago, Al Czervik said:

Sophomore year at Southwest Texas State University (1986) Larry McMurtry came to Al's English class to read a few chapters of Lonesome Dove.  He and the lady Professor were friends and was there to share his novel with her classes.   This was a Thursday class so it ran an hour and a half, I stuck around for the next class because the few chapters he read wasn't enough.  He did allow for questions afterwards and was engaging with the students, this was all in a classroom that fit no more than 30 students in Flowers Hall.  One of the better 3 hour learning blocks in young Al's undergraduate education.

 

Speaking of SWT, there used to be a really cool collection of Lonesome Dove set pieces, scripts, and other random collectibles on display on the top floor of the library as of about 6-7 years ago. No idea if it's still there or not but seem to think it was a permanent collection.

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OWLVIS

OWLVIS 557

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He just wrote " Texas women" so well. And not just Jacy although who of us  haven't  known a Jacy. But others in countless books. That  can shoot a gun, skinny dippin' getting drunk, and washing up to wear an evening gown all in the same day kinda gals that are as Texas as BBQ and two-steppin

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MaybeACoordinator

MaybeACoordinator 8349

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14 minutes ago, D_Goose said:

RIP. Some very early memories of my parents watching the LD miniseries when it came out back in the day. Didn't think too much about McMurtry again until being re-exposed to him in Don Graham's (also RIP) excellent Southwest Lit class at UT.

Speaking of SWT, there used to be a really cool collection of Lonesome Dove set pieces, scripts, and other random collectibles on display on the top floor of the library as of about 6-7 years ago. No idea if it's still there or not but seem to think it was a permanent collection.

That's most likely the Wittliff Collection, and it's been expanded and made into a museum of its own, I think. 

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MaybeACoordinator

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One of the Riciest things ever is that Larry McMurtry is so strongly associated with Rice (one of its top 5 most famous alumni, easily) but could not get his undergrad there (because of math; he did get a Masters there), and also that the school now has a McMurtry residential college....which is named after one Burt McMurtry, no kin to Larry. It's like of New Orleans named their airport after Louis Armstrong, obscure parish commissioner, rather than the jazz superstar. It was only today that I learned that about McMurtry College. 

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MaybeACoordinator

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4 hours ago, Royalfan5 said:

I'd also like to mention here that I drove from Lincoln, NE to Giddings via Archer City just so I could visit his bookstore, and take pictures of downtown Archer City. Worth every second of having to drive through SW Oklahoma to do it. Edit: That side trip also introduced me to Ray Wylie Hubbard too

 

If you take that trip again, you need to listen to this several times on your way there and back:

2 hours ago, Duane Moore said:

Duane’s depressed

The last of his masterpieces, IMO. Very underrated.

 

2 hours ago, OneOfTheOutOfFocusGuys said:

I just informed by brother in law of the passing.  He's from Archer City and sort of friendly with McMurtry.  He told me a two things. 1) he just bought first editions of Horseman, Pass By and two other books I can't remember and left them at the book store because the librarian said she'd have Larry sign them.  Doesn't know if he ever got around to it; 2) he was in Tucson and reached out to him for lunch just a few months ago and McMurtry said he couldn't meet up because of COVID.  What an absolute bummer.

I somehow came into possession of a paperback copy of In a Narrow Grave he'd signed and dedicated to the Houston poet Vassar Miller. I mailed it back to him about eight or nine years ago along with a short note of appreciation...Never heard back. I don't know if he ever even saw it. I sent it to Archer City but I read today he was kicking it in Tucson for much of the last ten years. 

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Mighty fine

Mighty fine 169

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Probably in the vast minority here but my favorite work of his is “All My Friends Are Going to be Steangers.”

RIP.
Not sure what got me started on it, but I went on kick sophomore and junior year of school where I read through all of McMutry's books outside of the Lonesome Dove series, and then went through everything Cornac McCarthy had put out up to that point.

All my Friends and The Crossing have come to mean more to me the older I get. I re read them both evey couple of years.
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Duane Moore

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52 minutes ago, D_Goose said:

RIP. Some very early memories of my parents watching the LD miniseries when it came out back in the day. Didn't think too much about McMurtry again until being re-exposed to him in Don Graham's (also RIP) excellent Southwest Lit class at UT.

Speaking of SWT, there used to be a really cool collection of Lonesome Dove set pieces, scripts, and other random collectibles on display on the top floor of the library as of about 6-7 years ago. No idea if it's still there or not but seem to think it was a permanent collection.

Don Graham died too? Well crap.  I took that same class and Graham was able to get McMurtry came to campus to give a talk that we all attended. 

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OWLVIS

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30 minutes ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

One of the Riciest things ever is that Larry McMurtry is so strongly associated with Rice (one of its top 5 most famous alumni, easily) but could not get his undergrad there (because of math; he did get a Masters there), and also that the school now has a McMurtry residential college....which is named after one Burt McMurtry, no kin to Larry. It's like of New Orleans named their airport after Louis Armstrong, obscure parish commissioner, rather than the jazz superstar. It was only today that I learned that about McMurtry College. 

Yeah ,Rice mathematics has taken many a lesser mind but none greater that McMurtrys . I know a few older Alum that recall drinking at Kays with him when he was teaching. The old Texas shaped table there had all the Mercury astronauts names scrawled into it .When I would drink there i was easy to imagine them or a drunk Dave Ward at the bar.

Well didn't have the imagine Dave

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Liquor and Poker

Liquor and Poker 3659

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13 minutes ago, OWLVIS said:

Yeah ,Rice mathematics has taken many a lesser mind but none greater that McMurtrys . I know a few older Alum that recall drinking at Kays with him when he was teaching. The old Texas shaped table there had all the Mercury astronauts names scrawled into it .When I would drink there i was easy to imagine them or a drunk Dave Ward at the bar.

Well didn't have the imagine Dave

Damn.  Now I miss Kay's too.

Dave in his vampire costume even though it was June.

El Chevy is my favorite McMurtry book too, although I think the first part of Texasville is underrated genius.

Edited by Liquor and Poker
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MaybeACoordinator

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2 minutes ago, OWLVIS said:

Yeah ,Rice mathematics has taken many a lesser mind but none greater that McMurtrys . I know a few older Alum that recall drinking at Kays with him when he was teaching. The old Texas shaped table there had all the Mercury astronauts names scrawled into it .When I would drink there i was easy to imagine them or a drunk Dave Ward at the bar.

Well didn't have the imagine Dave

Right at the end of his life I got to know McMurtry's freshman roommate, Douglas Milburn, a very eccentric writer whose local fame, such as it was, faded out in the 990s, while he lived on until 2012 or so. He had been a writer and editor of some note from the '70s to the '90s and taught German at Rice. He had a long-ass Russian style beard and chainsmoked like nobody I'd ever seen before -- literally lighting each one off the last.

He was a good writer -- he wrote two walking guides to Houston that are minor classics of local geography, culture, and cityscapes: snatch up The Last American City: An intrepid walker's guide to Houston or its predecessor, just plain An Intrepid Walker's Guide to Houston if you can find them. If Houston had any local pride or institutional memory some publisher would reissue them as a combined set. 

Milburn was kind of burned out on talking about McMurtry by the time I met him but I remember he was greatly appreciative of his work on Brokeback Mountain. He was a gay man and that meant a lot to him. 

And he believed in "power spots." For Houston, the power spot of all power spots is the Glendale Cemetery in Old Harrisburg. We went there one day and I think he was right about that. 

 

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Royalfan5

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1 hour ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

 

If you take that trip again, you need to listen to this several times on your way there and back:

The last of his masterpieces, IMO. Very underrated.

 

I somehow came into possession of a paperback copy of In a Narrow Grave he'd signed and dedicated to the Houston poet Vassar Miller. I mailed it back to him about eight or nine years ago along with a short note of appreciation...Never heard back. I don't know if he ever even saw it. I sent it to Archer City but I read today he was kicking it in Tucson for much of the last ten years. 

I’ll note that I’ve got a side trip to Baxter Springs slated too, because of going to visit friends of my fiancé just because I wanted to see a hellraising town in Southeastern Kansas 

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MaybeACoordinator

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8 minutes ago, OWLVIS said:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/larry-mcmurtry-death/   TexasMonthlys take

Poor Skip always gets assigned to write about great Texans whose works he admires but who are kind of bored / annoyed by reporters, even ones as talented and friendly as Skip. Here he is getting cold-shouldered and big-timed by Tommy Lee Jones.

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deadshank

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31 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

I’ll note that I’ve got a side trip to Baxter Springs slated too, because of going to visit friends of my fiancé just because I wanted to see a hellraising town in Southeastern Kansas 

You gonna be like a bois d’arc fence post. 

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CHIEF

CHIEF 5078

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2 hours ago, MaybeACoordinator said:

 

If you take that trip again, you need to listen to this several times on your way there and back:

The last of his masterpieces, IMO. Very underrated.

 

I somehow came into possession of a paperback copy of In a Narrow Grave he'd signed and dedicated to the Houston poet Vassar Miller. I mailed it back to him about eight or nine years ago along with a short note of appreciation...Never heard back. I don't know if he ever even saw it. I sent it to Archer City but I read today he was kicking it in Tucson for much of the last ten years. 

Yep, about 5-6 years ago I spent A LOT of time in Archer City, between O&G, and our deer lease being there. No one had seen him in a long time. I don't know what they are going to do with his bookstore, it occupies every previously abandoned building around the square and along the major roads. I would suggest they offer a book that came out of "famous author Larry McMurtry's Archer City bookstore" for $5 plus shipping and handling for anyone that would purchase one, and buy a rubber stamp for authentication. It would be the biggest windfall that town has seen in decades. An irrelevant town just became a lot more irrelevant.

CHIEF 

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