Description
Book SynopsisLarry McMurtry burst onto the American literary scene with a force that would forever redefine how we perceive the American West. His first three novels— Horseman, Pass By (1961),* Leaving Cheyenne (1963), and The Last Picture Show (1966)— all set in the north Texas town of Thalia after World War II, are collected here for the first time. In this trilogy, McMurtry writes tragically of men and women trying to carve out an existence on the plains, where the forces of modernity challenge small- town American life. From a cattleranch rivalry that confirms McMurtry’s “full- blooded Western genius” (Publishers Weekly) to a love triangle involving a cowboy, his rancher boss and wife, and finally to the hardscrabble citizens of an oil- patch town trying to keep their only movie house alive, McMurtry captures the stark realities of the West like no one else. With a new introduction, Thalia emerges as an American classic that celebrates one of our greatest literary masters.
*Just named in 2017 by Publishers Weekly the #1 Western novel worthy of rediscovery.
Trade Review"It’s good to see them all together . . . . These novels are three independent attempts to portray that world and what was left in the wake of its passing. Each one is better than the last. . . Among the many pleasures in reading
Thalia is observing Mr. McMurtry’s gathering power as a novelist." -- Gregory Curtis - Wall Street Journal
"These three McMurtry novels rode over the tired clichés of post-Wister cowboy mythology with iron hooves. They revolutionized hero-heavy western literature. Here were characters plagued by bad love affairs, cranky kitchen stoves, infected by sibling rivalries, coming up against obstinate horses and pain-in-the-ass fathers, whitewashing sexual jealousies with rotten deeds of cheating and lying. Yet the stories showed an undercoating of rust-proof decency that sometimes let an offender face up to himself." -- Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Shipping News
