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A review by j_greer
In a Narrow Grave: Essays on Texas by Larry McMurtry
5.0
As McMurtry hints at throughout most of these essays, there are clear lines drawn throughout Texas. Geographic and visible as well as social and hidden. Part of the state is the West, other parts the South, other parts completely foreign to the Union, and even still other parts belonging to a not so forgotten history of independence no other state can claim.
If you have family in or from Texas, you understand the puzzle. It’s pride encrusted with time. Lives measured out in sunrise gazes and porch side conversations. Each state has its history. Wide and personal. But few states have stories that rely less on words than images. So much of Texas is independent of nature’s architecture. Everything is open. With this much land and such a wide view of it all, attention must go somewhere else.
Stunning as it is, it isn’t the landscape that continues to magnetize so many Texans. It’s what McMurtry commits so few direct words to throughout the essays. The knowing wink between cousins, grandparents, and grandchildren that doesn’t rely on words for expression. His personal history of McMurtrys scattered across the small Texas towns is a microcosm of most Texan families. Generations of life laying underneath the stones of time. Most will never be uncovered and it’s not a mystery that most would prefer it this way.
If you have family in or from Texas, you understand the puzzle. It’s pride encrusted with time. Lives measured out in sunrise gazes and porch side conversations. Each state has its history. Wide and personal. But few states have stories that rely less on words than images. So much of Texas is independent of nature’s architecture. Everything is open. With this much land and such a wide view of it all, attention must go somewhere else.
Stunning as it is, it isn’t the landscape that continues to magnetize so many Texans. It’s what McMurtry commits so few direct words to throughout the essays. The knowing wink between cousins, grandparents, and grandchildren that doesn’t rely on words for expression. His personal history of McMurtrys scattered across the small Texas towns is a microcosm of most Texan families. Generations of life laying underneath the stones of time. Most will never be uncovered and it’s not a mystery that most would prefer it this way.