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Lonesome Dove

Lonesome Dove

The Pulitzer Prize Winning Novel Set in the American West
Historical FictionClassics
Pages
960
Published
1985
Language
English

Synopsis

Former Texas Rangers Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call have settled into a quiet, dusty life running a livery in the border town of Lonesome Dove — until an old comrade rides in with talk of the unspoiled cattle country of Montana, and the two men decide to drive a herd two thousand miles north to build a ranch on the last of the open frontier.

What follows is an epic journey across a vast and often merciless American West, peopled with cowboys, outlaws, settlers, and the women who love and outlast them, and marked by friendship, hardship, love, and loss.

Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove is a sweeping, deeply human Western — an elegy for the vanishing frontier and one of the great American novels of the twentieth century.

Prose complexity
7/10

Vibe

AdventurousGrittyMelancholicReflective
QuestSurvivalComing of AgeFound FamilyMultiple POVsMentor FigureSacrificeBetrayalFamily Saga

Genres

Historical Fiction Classics Literary Fiction Romance Adventure

About the author

L
Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry (1936–2021) was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter from Texas, known for fiction set in the American West and contemporary Texas. His novel Lonesome Dove (1985) won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Several of his novels, including Horseman, Pass By, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment, were adapted into acclaimed films, and he co-wrote the Academy Award-winning screenplay for Brokeback Mountain with Diana Ossana. McMurtry was also a longtime antiquaria...

Characters

Augustus 'Gus' McCraeProtagonist

A garrulous, philosophical former Texas Ranger and one half of the story's central friendship.

Woodrow CallProtagonist

A driven, taciturn former Ranger who leads the cattle drive north.

Blue DuckAntagonist

A half-Comanche outlaw leader, a ruthless and violent enemy of Call and Gus from their Ranger days.

Newt DobbsSupporting

A seventeen-year-old orphan raised by Call and Gus at the Hat Creek outfit, and likely Call's unacknowledged son.

Joshua DeetsSupporting

The Hat Creek outfit's chief scout, a loyal and exceptionally skilled tracker.

All characters in Lonesome Dove

Frequently asked questions

  • Did Lonesome Dove win the Pulitzer Prize?

    Yes. Larry McMurtry won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for Lonesome Dove, published the previous year by Simon & Schuster. It was also a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction that year.

  • What order should I read the Lonesome Dove series in?

    By publication order — the order McMurtry wrote them and the order most readers recommend: Lonesome Dove (1985), Streets of Laredo (1993), Dead Man's Walk (1995), and Comanche Moon (1997). The last two are prequels; reading them first spoils events in Lonesome Dove itself.

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