Uncovering the Untold Mysteries Behind Larry McMurtry’s Legendary Life in ‘Western Star’
Here we have one of the most prolific writers of the last 100 years, an intellectual powerhouse and Pulitzer Prize winner whose literary merit has been challenged from the beginning because he was not an east-coast intellectual or a west-coast trendsetter. I agree with Streitfeld that it’s past time for scholarship on McMurtry that probes questions about his literary merit, for good or bad, and his cultural footprint. Is he just a minor regional novelist as the slogan on a sweatshirt he used to wear proclaimed? Did he breathe more life and authenticity into his female characters than other male writers of his generation, as many of his admirers claim? Did he reshape our perception of the American west or just perpetuate our myths?
