Download or read book Pastures of the Empty Page written by George Getschow and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2023 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Larry McMurtry is the author of dozens of novels (Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show), screenplays (Brokeback Mountain, Terms of Endearment), and essays ("Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen"), among other writings. He won the Pulitzer Prize, Oscars, and Emmys, among other honors. When he died in March 2021, he was possibly Texas's best-known and best-loved writer, an honor he famously dismissed with a t-shirt that read "minor regional novelist." George Getschow worked with McMurtry through the Archer City Writer's Workshop, an annual three-day event in McMurtry's hometown that pairs emerging and established writers. He's leveraged that network to build this collection of essays paying homage to McMurtry, only a handful of which have been previously published. The pieces in the volume pay tribute to McMurtry in a variety of ways. Stephen Graham Jones captures the thrill of seeing the legendary author prowling the stacks in his used-book store, wondering if his own books might one day be on those same shelves. Sarah Bird talks about McMurtry's "messy but mythic west" that made Texas appealing to her. Elizabeth Crook talks about how difficult it is to let go of McMurtry's characters, particularly those from Lonesome Dove, a book Geoff Dyer also found himself surprisingly unable to ignore despite everything he knew about it (it's long, slow to develop, etc.). Greg Curtis recalls McMurtry as a fellow student at Rice, and Charlie McMurtry, Larry's brother, writes about growing up with him in excerpts from his dissertation. Stephanie Elizondo Griest is enamored and perplexed by a shelf of books in McMurtry's private collection that he called his "runaways," travel accounts by 19th-century women. Diana Ossana, McMurtry's longtime screenwriting partner and one of his dearest friends, writes movingly about their friendship and many collaborations. Getschow has written an introduction that sketches the contours of McMurtry's life"--
Download or read book Pastures of the Empty Page written by George Getschow and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of essays that offers an intimate view of Larry McMurtry, America’s preeminent western novelist, through the eyes of a pantheon of writers he helped shape through his work over the course of his unparalleled literary life. When he died in 2021, Larry McMurtry was one of America’s most revered writers. The author of treasured novels such as Lonesome Dove and The Last Picture Show, and coauthor of the screenplays for Brokeback Mountain and Streets of Laredo, McMurtry created unforgettable characters and landscapes largely drawn from his life growing up on the family’s hardscrabble ranch outside his hometown of Archer City, Texas. Pastures of the Empty Page brings together fellow writers to honor the man and his impact on American letters. Paulette Jiles, Stephen Harrigan, Stephanie Elizondo Griest, and Lawrence Wright take up McMurtry’s piercing and poetic vision—an elegiac literature of place that demolished old myths of cowboy culture and created new ones. Screenwriting partner Diana Ossana reflects on their thirty-year book and screenwriting partnership; other contributors explore McMurtry’s reading habits and his passion for bookselling. And brother Charlie McMurtry shares memories of their childhood on the ranch. In contrast to his curmudgeonly persona, Larry McMurtry emerges as a trustworthy friend and supportive mentor. McMurtry was famously self-deprecating, but as his admirers attest, this self-described “minor regional writer” was an artist for the ages.
Download or read book Horseman Pass By written by Larry McMurtry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-06-01 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lonesome Dove comes the novel that became the basis for the film Hud, starring Paul Newman. In classic Western style Larry McMurtry illustrates the timeless conflict between the modernity and the Old West through the eyes of Texas cattlemen. Horseman, Pass By tells the story of Homer Bannon, an old-time cattleman who epitomizes the frontier values of honesty and decency, and Hud, his unscrupulous stepson. Caught in the middle is the narrator, Homer's young grandson Lonnie, who is as much drawn to his grandfather’s strength of character as he is to Hud's hedonism and materialism. When first published in 1961, Horseman, Pass By caused a sensation in Texas literary circles for its stark, realistic portrayal of the struggles of a changing West in the years following World War II. Never before had a writer managed to encapsulate its environment with such unsentimental realism. Today, memorable characters, powerful themes, and illuminating detail make Horseman, Pass By vintage McMurtry.
Download or read book Larry McMurtry written by Tracy Daugherty and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2023-09-12 with total page 397 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Pulitzer Prize Finalist* A biography of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry from New York Times bestselling author Tracy Daugherty. In over forty books, in a career that spanned over sixty years, Larry McMurtry staked his claim as a superior chronicler of the American West, and as the Great Plains’ keenest witness since Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Larry McMurtry: A Life traces his origins as one of the last American writers who had direct contact with this country’s pioneer traditions. It follows his astonishing career as bestselling novelist, Pulitzer-Prize winner, author of the beloved Lonesome Dove, Academy-Award winning screenwriter, public intellectual, and passionate bookseller. A sweeping and insightful look at a versatile, one-of-a-kind American writer, this book is a must-read for every Larry McMurtry fan.
Download or read book Empty Pastures written by Terence J. Centner and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past century American agriculture has shifted dramatically with small, commercial farms finding it increasingly difficult to compete with large-scale (mostly indoor) animal feeding operations (AFOs). In this book, Terence J. Centner investigates the environmental, social, economic, and political impact of the rise of the so-called factory farm, exposing the ramifications of the contemporary trend toward industrial-scale food production. Just as Rachel Carson's landmark Silent Spring used the disappearance of songbirds as a jumping-off point for a work that raised public awareness of pesticides' devastating environmental impact, Empty Pastures sees the dwindling numbers of livestock in the American countryside as a symptom of a broader transformation, one with serious consequences for the rural landscape and its inhabitants--animal as well as human. After outlining the rise of the AFO, Centner examines the troubling consequences of consolidation in animal farming and suggests a number of remedies. The issues he tackles include groundwater contamination, the loss of biodiversity, animal welfare, concentrated odors and other nuisances, soil erosion, and the economic effects of the disappearance of the small family farm. Inspired by largely abandoned traditional practices rather than a radical and unrealistic vision of a return to an idealized past, Centner proposes a series of pragmatic reforms for regulating factory farms to halt ecological degradation and revitalize rural communities.
Download or read book Larry McMurtry and the West written by Mark Busby and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 366 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first major single-authored book in almost twenty years to examine the life and work of Texas' foremost novelist and to develop coherent patterns of theme, structure, symbol, imagery, and influence in Larry McMurtry's work. The study focuses on the novelist's relationship to the Southwest, theorizing that his writing exhibits a deep ambivalence toward his home territory. The course of his career demonstrates shifting attitudes that have led him toward, away from, and then back again to his home place and the "cowboy god" that dominates its mythology. The book utilizes original materials from five library special collections, as well as interviews with McMurtry, his family, and his friends, such as Ken Kesey.
Download or read book Novel Competition written by Evan Brier and published by University of Iowa Press. This book was released on 2024 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Novel Competition describes the literary and institutional effort to make the American novel matter after 1965. During this era, Hollywood movies, popular music, and other forms of mass-produced culture vied with novels for a specific kind of prestige - often figured as "importance" or "relevance" - that had mostly been attached to novels in previous decades. This trans-media competition, Brier argues, is a crucial but largely unacknowledged event in the literary and economic history of the American novel. In the face of it, the novel lost some of the symbolic specialness it formerly held. That loss, in turn, generated not just a much-discussed rhetoric of crisis but also a host of unexamined, intertwined effects on both literary form and the business of novel production. Drawing on a range of novels and on the archives of publishers, editors, agents, and authors, Novel Competition shows how fiction's declining position in a transformed "popular-prestige" economy reshaped the post-1965 American novel as art form, cultural institution, and commodity"--
Download or read book Larry McMurtry s Texas written by Lera Patrick Tyler Lich and published by . This book was released on 1987 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author looks past the myth to analyze the development of McMurtry as one of the leading novelists on today's American literary scene.
Download or read book In a Narrow Grave Essays on Texas written by Larry McMurtry and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark collection, brimming with his signature wit and incomparable sensibility, is Larry McMurtry’s classic tribute to his home and his people. Before embarking on what would become one of the most prominent writing careers in American literature, spanning decades and indelibly shaping the nation’s perception of the West, Larry McMurtry knew what it meant to come from Texas. Originally published in 1968, In a Narrow Grave is the Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s homage to the past and present of the Lone Star State, where he grew up a precociously observant hand on his father’s ranch. From literature to rodeos, small-town folk to big city intellectuals, McMurtry explores all the singular elements that define his land and community, revealing the surprising and particular challenges in the “dying . . . rural, pastoral way of life.” “The gold standard for understanding Houston’s brash rootlessness and civic insecurities” (Douglas Brinkley, New York Times Book Review), In a Narrow Grave offers a timeless portrait of the vividly human, complex, full-blooded Texan.
Download or read book Larry McMurtry written by John Reilly and published by Greenwood. This book was released on 2000-05-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Larry McMurtry's award winning novels have redefined not only the literature of the west, but also the essential myths with which the west is associated. Readers were initiated into the world of the modern cowboy with McMurtry's first novel Horseman Pass By. Nearly 35 years later McMurtry revisits his hometown project with his latest update on the characters who populated The Last Picture Show and Texasville in his most recent novel Duane's Depressed. This Critical Companion examines all 22 of McMurtry's works. By considering individual literary elements and overall construction of the novels, this analysis probes how McMurtry has given contemporary relevance to traditional elements of the Western story.
Download or read book The Pastures of Heaven written by John Steinbeck and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1995-04-01 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Penguin Classic In Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck’s beautifully rendered depictions of small yet fateful moments that transform ordinary lives, these twelve early stories introduce both the subject and style of artistic expression that recur in the most important works of his career. Each of these self-contained stories is linked to the others by the presence of the Munroes, a family whose misguided behavior and lack of sensitivity precipitate disasters and tragedies. As the individual dramas unfold, Steinbeck reveals the self-deceptions, intellectual limitations, and emotional vulnerabilities that shape the characters’ reactions and gradually erode the harmony and dreams that once formed the foundation of the community. This edition includes an introduction and notes by James Nagel. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
Download or read book An Hour Before Daylight written by Jimmy Carter and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2001-10-16 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jimmy Carter re-creates his boyhood on a Georgia farm.
Download or read book The Reader 21 written by Jane Davis and published by Liverpool University Press - R. This book was released on 2006-03 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most literary magazines focus on the craft of writing and cater to a highly select audience of writers, literary critics, and scholars of literature. In contrast, The Reader is a quarterly literary magazine aimed at the intelligent common reader. The Reader not only publishes short fiction and poetry by new and established writers but also contains many other features, such as essays on language, writing, and reading; a literary quiz; a publishing industry gossip column, "Our Spy in NY"; and book reviews. The Reader offers rich, engaging reading for book lovers, combining high-quality content with a genuine commitment to the dedicated reader. Volume 21, entitled "Ancient Worlds," continues The Reader's tradition of celebrating the act of reading in all its forms. The Reader is one of the best things to come through the letterbox."--Seamus Heaney
Download or read book The Rural Life written by Verlyn Klinkenborg and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2007-09-03 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hugely admired author of "The Last Fine Time" preserves and makes new the sights, smells, sounds, and poetry of country living. Klinkenborg reveals the beauty of the American landscape, not from a scenic overlook, but through a screened-in porch or from the window of a pickup driving down an empty highway in the teeth of an approaching storm.
Download or read book All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers A Novel written by Larry McMurtry and published by Liveright Publishing. This book was released on 2018-05-29 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A young writer hits the dusty Texas highway for the California coast in this “brilliant . . . funny and dangerously tender” (Time) tale of art and sacrifice. Hailed as one of “the best novels ever set in America’s fourth largest city” (Douglas Brinkley, New York Times Book Review), All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers is a powerful demonstration of Larry McMurtry’s “comic genius, his ability to render a sense of landscape, and interior intellection tension” (Jim Harrison, New York Times Book Review). Desperate to break from the “mundane happiness” of Houston, budding writer Danny Deck hops in his car, “El Chevy,” bound for the West Coast on a road trip filled with broken hearts and bleak realities of the artistic life. A cast of unforgettable characters joins the naïve troubadour’s pilgrimage to California and back to Texas, including a cruel, long-legged beauty; an appealing screenwriter; a randy college professor; and a genuine if painfully “normal” friend. Since the novel’s publication in 1972, Danny Deck has “been far more successful at getting loved by readers than he ever was at getting loved by the women in his life” (McMurtry), a testament to the author’s incomparable talent for capturing the essential tragicomedy of the human experience.
Download or read book Western American Literature written by and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Greener Pastures written by Michael Wehunt and published by Apex Publications. This book was released on 2017-03-04 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his striking debut collection, Greener Pastures, Michael Wehunt shows why he is a powerful new voice in horror and weird fiction. From the round-robin, found-footage nightmare of “October Film Haunt: Under the House” to the jazz-soaked “The Devil Under the Maison Blue,” selected for both The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and Year’s Best Weird Fiction, these beautifully crafted, emotionally resonant stories speak of the unknown encroaching upon the familiar, the inscrutable power of grief and desire, and the thinness between all our layers. Where nature rubs against small towns, in mountains and woods and bedrooms, here is strangeness seen through a poet’s eye. They say there are always greener pastures. These stories consider the cost of that promise.