I recently browsed a Reddit post that asked “what is the best book you have ever read” and the first post was “Lonesome Dove.” As I progressed scrolling, there were many books I had read myself, and I agreed that they were very good, but the most common one named was one I had not read:  Lonesome Dove.

My favorite book: there are so many that I would be afraid to say. Probably if I had to pick anything I’d say Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.

—Stephen King

So I finally read it myself.

Lonesome Dove won the Pulitzer Prize in 1986. The book is 864 printed pages long and it took me quite a while to read it. It’s an epic Western.

The story starts around 1876 in the hot of dusty town of Lonesome Dove on the Texas side of the Rio Grande in south Texas. There are just a few houses, a blacksmith, and of course a saloon with a single prostitute. 

Two retired Texas Rangers, Augustus McCrae whom they call Gus or Mr. Gus and Woodrow Call whom everyone calls Captain Call or the Captain, live together on a ranch with a cantankerous cook and a few ranch hands, many of them former Texas Rangers, with nothing much to do. One day they decide t0 pick up stakes and go on a cattle drive to Montana. In those days, Montana was untamed wilderness. The Captain had the vision to be the first one there to start a cattle ranch. Along the way, they face unspeakable dangers, from the weather, perilous heat and drought, snakes, bears, outlaws, horse thieves and Indians.

Besides the two protagonists there is an unforgettable cast of characters, all of them deeply developed, their lives intertwined and their fates interconnected, to make for a kaleidoscopic story of lust, love, regret, hope, sorrow, pain, loyalty, grit, grit and grit, showing us the unyielding spirit of the American West.

The story plays just 100 years before I myself landed there in the Arizona desert in 1977. How much has changed since then, and yet, how much does the land still look the same! Today I can drive from Texas to Montana in three days. It took the cattle drive six months.

I learned so much. For instance, I studied up on the Texas Rangers. Before reading Lonesome Dove, Texas Rangers just were some exotic law enforcement men in – yes, Texas. Now I know they are among the oldest law-enforcement institutions in the United States. The Ranger tradition is generally traced to 1823, when Stephen F. Austin arranged for small groups of armed men to “range” through the territory and protect Anglo-American settlements. The provisional Texas government formally authorized a Ranger force in 1835, shortly before the Texas Revolution.

I also realized how brutal and lawless life was in the West in those days. Romanticized westerns are not giving us the right, clear picture. Read Lonesome Dove and understand, yes – feel the brutality of life for those early settlers in the West. Read Lonesome Dove and get a sense of the utter cruelty that was inflicted on the Native Americans and how they were systematically decimated and brutalized by the white conquerors. Read Lonesome Dove and forever change your view of the romantic “Cowboys and Indians” lore that we have all been spoon fed with.

Lonesome Dove was the first book of what became a series of four books, two prequels and one sequel.

There is also an epic miniseries for television: Lonesome Dove (1989): The foundational miniseries starring Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones, which follows the retired Rangers on their arduous cattle drive from Texas to Montana. In addition, several other series have been created about the prequels and sequels. I will first watch the 1989 series to match the book I have just read, and I may follow through with the other ones, if I decide to read those (if I find the time).

Lonesome Dove will definitely be on my personal list of the top 10 best books I have ever read.

4 stars