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A review by theecraigeth
Dead Man's Walk by Larry McMurtry
1.5
A great disappointment, in heavy handed prose Dead Man’s Walk follows Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae upon first joining the Texas Rangers as they embark on an ill-planned and ill-fated journey through Comanche country to annex Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then a journey through Apache Country as prisoners of the Mexican Army, where they cross the titular Jornada del Muerto. Finally, returning back to Texas as the escorts of the Lady Carey, a British noblewoman formerly held prisoner in a leper colony.
McMurtry’s penchant for writing one-dimensional villains is generously extended here to all his characters in Dead Man’s Walk; our main protagonists Gus and Call are little more than early outlines of what they grow to be in Lonesome Dove and both lack the charm and aptitude that made them such compelling characters: Gus McCrae is grating, juvenile and sex obsessed; Call is rigid, wrathful and impersonable. The other Rangers are mostly nondescript, the exceptions being the commanders, always vain and inept; and two seasoned scouts, Shadrach and Bigfoot Wallace, who, while apparently competent, never seem able to prevent the various misfortunes that befall the Rangers. Perhaps the worst is Matilda Roberts, a whore, as so many of McMurtry’s important women characters are. Matty shows early promise as a character. She starts the book by catching a snapping turtle and throwing it at the campfire so it can be cooked. Part-way through the book becomes engaged to Shadrach, who is later accidentally killed during Colonel Caleb Cobb’s farcical last stand. By the end of the book, Matty has lost all of the boldness and assertiveness that she had in the early pages, and she alternatively mothers Woodrow Call, warms various male characters with her body at night and cries about the loss of her dear Shad.
Dead Man’s Walk also lacks the thematical richness of Lonesome Dove, which explored themes of aging, friendship and disillusionment. In the prequel, we follow the Texas Rangers as they stumble through misfortune after misfortune, which they escape through luck, another character’s intervention such as the wealthy Mrs Carey, or the irrational superstitions of the Rangers’ Comanche enemies. The Rangers are simply not agents in a story written about them. Worse still, as we get to the end of the book, Woodrow Call is just as angry and unsociable as he was when he started. He’s made a lot of promises to himself that he would do things differently if he were to one day command a troop of Texas Rangers, but we have no evidence that he’s learnt anything that might mean he is able to do so. Gus McCrae, on the other hand, is just as whore-crazed and insecure at the start as he is at the end.
McMurtry’s penchant for writing one-dimensional villains is generously extended here to all his characters in Dead Man’s Walk; our main protagonists Gus and Call are little more than early outlines of what they grow to be in Lonesome Dove and both lack the charm and aptitude that made them such compelling characters: Gus McCrae is grating, juvenile and sex obsessed; Call is rigid, wrathful and impersonable. The other Rangers are mostly nondescript, the exceptions being the commanders, always vain and inept; and two seasoned scouts, Shadrach and Bigfoot Wallace, who, while apparently competent, never seem able to prevent the various misfortunes that befall the Rangers. Perhaps the worst is Matilda Roberts, a whore, as so many of McMurtry’s important women characters are. Matty shows early promise as a character. She starts the book by catching a snapping turtle and throwing it at the campfire so it can be cooked. Part-way through the book becomes engaged to Shadrach, who is later accidentally killed during Colonel Caleb Cobb’s farcical last stand. By the end of the book, Matty has lost all of the boldness and assertiveness that she had in the early pages, and she alternatively mothers Woodrow Call, warms various male characters with her body at night and cries about the loss of her dear Shad.
Dead Man’s Walk also lacks the thematical richness of Lonesome Dove, which explored themes of aging, friendship and disillusionment. In the prequel, we follow the Texas Rangers as they stumble through misfortune after misfortune, which they escape through luck, another character’s intervention such as the wealthy Mrs Carey, or the irrational superstitions of the Rangers’ Comanche enemies. The Rangers are simply not agents in a story written about them. Worse still, as we get to the end of the book, Woodrow Call is just as angry and unsociable as he was when he started. He’s made a lot of promises to himself that he would do things differently if he were to one day command a troop of Texas Rangers, but we have no evidence that he’s learnt anything that might mean he is able to do so. Gus McCrae, on the other hand, is just as whore-crazed and insecure at the start as he is at the end.