Uncovering the Untold Mysteries Behind Larry McMurtry’s Legendary Life in ‘Western Star’
For instance, Streitfeld fleshes out Tom Wolfe’s meager account, in the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, of the day in 1964 when Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters stopped their bus at McMurtry’s house in Houston. In his version, Wolfe does not bother to give a name (other than her prankster alias, Stark Naked) to the naked woman who jumped from the bus and scooped up Larry McMurtry’s two-year-old son where he was playing in the front yard.
Streitfeld corrects the record by learning her name (Cathryn Casamo), contacting her, and allowing her to give her sad side of the story which involved drug-induced delusions, incarceration, and a stay in a mental hospital that sounds like a chapter from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Streitfeld’s corrections belie the dismissive chauvinism of Wolfe’s telling and paint McMurtry, who bailed her out of the psychiatric ward after the Merry Pranksters left town, as the only person involved in the whole episode with an empathetic muscle. Streitfeld excels at putting meat on the bones of gossip-worthy moments like that.
