Conception as an unmade all-star movie
McMurtry explains that the story began as an unproduced early 1970s screenplay written with Peter Bogdanovich, intended to star John Wayne, James Stewart, and Henry Fonda.
Reviewed
Read Time
9 min read
Our age bandAges 16+ · Older teens & adults
Reader rating
4.8 · 31,697 Amazon ratings
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Our review
Lonesome Dove
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry Review: The Definitive American Cattle-Drive Epic
Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize–winning Western follows two retired Texas Rangers driving a herd from south Texas to Montana. It was a bestseller, inspired an acclaimed 1989 miniseries, and remains the benchmark of the modern Western.
LuvemBooks Verdict
Best for
Readers of epic, character-driven historical fiction willing to commit to a long novel — including Western skeptics, fans of the 1989 miniseries curious about the source, and anyone wanting the original before the announced Netflix adaptation.
Worth it if
Worth it if you can give a long novel room to breathe — per its original critics and later reviewers alike, the slow build pays off in a mythic-scale story whose characters land as specific, funny, flawed individuals rather than archetypes.
Skip if
Skip it if you want a fast-moving genre read — at 864 pages with a deliberately slow, whiskey-soaked opening stretch, its momentum is earned slowly, and its frank frontier violence and period attitudes make some chapters rough going.
What readers & critics say
Kirkus Reviews called it a "large, stately, and intensely powerful" novel built around a quest "misplaced in history," praising McMurtry for keeping it mythic without sacrificing the characters' sympathetic power. Independent reviewers echo that verdict with caveats: Luke Harkness admits it initially read as a generic cowboy story before the characters' transformative arcs won him over, Book Thoughts from Bed describes a masterfully spun but deliberately slow first third, and Words and Dirt notes its retrograde race and gender politics alongside its nuanced examination of frontier life.
“A large, stately, and intensely powerful novel — a quest misplaced in history, in a landscape bare of buffalo but still mythic.”
— Kirkus Reviews4.8from 31,697 Amazon ratings— reader ratings, not a LuvemBooks score
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Lonesome Dove follows retired Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call on a cattle drive from south Texas to Montana — an 864-page epic that won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize and remains the benchmark of the modern Western. LuvemBooks' verdict: for readers of character-driven historical fiction, it is close to required reading, pairing mythic scale with funny, specific, deeply human characters. The key caveat is the commitment: the opening stretch in Lonesome Dove is deliberately slow, and the frontier violence and period language are rendered frankly.
- Is it worth reading?
- Yes — LuvemBooks' assessment is that this is one of the rare epics that lives up to its reputation, and for lovers of character-driven storytelling on a vast canvas it is close to required. The original reception singled out McMurtry's ability to keep the story mythic without forfeiting a grain of the characters' sympathetic power or the book's considerable suspense. The honest caveats are matters of form, not quality: 864 pages, a deliberately slow first movement before the drive gets underway, and frank frontier violence and period language.
- Similar books
- Readers who want more McMurtry should continue with the sequel Streets of Laredo or try Terms of Endearment for his contemporary-fiction side. For the West at its darkest, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is the essential counterpoint; for a tighter, funnier frontier voice, Charles Portis's True Grit. Paulette Jiles's News of the World offers a post-Civil War Texas journey in a gentler register, and James McBride's The Good Lord Bird brings comparable humor and sweep to the John Brown era.
- Who should read this?
- First, readers of epic historical fiction who have somehow never gotten to it — it rewards the commitment the way few long novels do. It is equally suited to admirers of the 1989 miniseries curious about the source, to Western skeptics (its humor and characterization routinely convert them), and to anyone anticipating the forthcoming Netflix adaptation who wants the original first. It is a poor fit only for readers wanting a quick genre read or a gentle one.
- Tell me about the adaptations
- The novel was adapted in 1989 into an acclaimed television miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall that won both critical and popular acclaim. Netflix has since confirmed a new ongoing series adaptation from co-showrunners Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart, with Diana Ossana — McMurtry's longtime creative partner — among the executive producers. The miniseries is faithful in spirit, but the book's interiority, humor, and slow-built momentum are distinctly novelistic pleasures.
- Where should I start with the series?
- Publication order is the standard recommendation: Lonesome Dove was published first (1985) and stands fully alone, with Dead Man's Walk and Comanche Moon arriving later as prequels and Streets of Laredo as the sequel. Internal chronology is different — Lonesome Dove sits third in the saga's timeline — so newcomers do have to choose, but starting with Lonesome Dove itself means meeting Gus and Call as generations of readers first did.
Summarize this book
Is it worth reading?
Who should read this?
Tell me about the adaptations
Where should I start with the series?
Summarize this book
Larry McMurtry's 1985 Pulitzer-winning Western follows a band of retired Texas Rangers — most memorably Augustus 'Gus' McCrae and Woodrow F. Call — who leave their idle, hard-drinking life in south Texas to drive a cattle herd to Montana, chasing the last days of the old, unsettled West. The novel marries mythic scale to intimacy: an enormous canvas populated by specific, flawed, funny characters rather than archetypes. It reads as both celebration and elegy, since the West Gus and Call ride into is already closing — the buffalo gone, the quest itself an anachronism.
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Our Review
We review the evidence: published critics, reader verdicts and BookTube reviews, gathered and weighed with AI assistance and edited by LuvemBooks, rather than one reader's first-hand take.
Lonesome Dove is one of the rare epics that lives up to its reputation: a Pulitzer Prize–winning Western whose sweep, humor, and human warmth have kept it in print and in readers' affections for four decades.
A Cattle Drive as Grand Narrative
Larry McMurtry's 1985 novel is built around one of the great journeys in American fiction. A band of retired Texas Rangers — most memorably Augustus "Gus" McCrae and Woodrow F. Call — has been living idly in dry, hard-drinking south Texas when they set out on a cattle drive to Montana, chasing the last days of the old, unsettled West.
As critics described the construction, this is "an epic journey from dry, hard-drinking south Texas... To the last outpost and the last days of the old, unsettled West in rough Montana," a quest, in McMurtry's handling, "misplaced in history, in a landscape that is bare of buffalo but still mythic."
The novel announces its register from the first sentence. It opens, "WHEN AUGUSTUS CAME OUT on the porch the blue pigs were eating a rattlesnake-not a very big one."
That dry, unhurried matter-of-factness — danger and comedy sharing a porch — is the book's signature: the frontier rendered not as legend but as a place where people actually lived, argued, ate, and bickered.
Its Place in the American Canon
Lonesome Dove won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was a bestseller on publication. It is the first published book of the Lonesome Dove series, though it sits third in the series' internal chronology; McMurtry later extended the story with the prequels Dead Man's Walk and Comanche Moon and the sequel Streets of Laredo.
McMurtry — the author of Terms of Endearment and The Last Picture Show, who died in 2021 — wrote twenty-nine novels, and the publisher describes this one as his loftiest and the grandest ever written about the last defiant wilderness.
The novel's standing is unusually broad. On the publisher's page, Nicholas Lemann critics is quoted saying that everything about it "feels true... These are real people, and they are still larger than life," and Stephen King is quoted naming it his pick for a favorite book.
In 1989 it was adapted into a television miniseries starring Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall that won both critical and popular acclaim, and Netflix has since confirmed a new ongoing series adaptation from co-showrunners Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart, with Diana Ossana, McMurtry's longtime creative partner, among the executive producers.
What It Does Exceptionally Well
The novel's great achievement, per its original reception, is marrying mythic scale to intimacy. Critics praised it as a "large, stately, and intensely powerful" work and called it "a masterly novel," singling out McMurtry's ability to keep the story mythic without "forfeiting a grain of the characters' sympathetic power or of the book's considerable suspense."
That is the precise balance readers mean when they call it the Great American Novel of the West: an enormous canvas — a cattle drive spanning thousands of miles — populated by characters who register as specific, flawed, and funny individuals rather than archetypes.
The book also refuses easy nostalgia. The West Gus and Call ride into is already closing; the buffalo are gone, and the quest itself is an anachronism.
McMurtry plays that elegy against the Rangers' very alive appetites and banter, which is why the novel reads as both celebration and elegy at once — the combination that has made it the standard against which subsequent Westerns, in print and on screen, are measured.
Genuine Limitations
The honest caveats are matters of form rather than quality. At 864 pages, this is a genuinely long book, and its first movement — the idle, whiskey-soaked life in Lonesome Dove before the drive begins — takes its time; readers expecting a fast start should know the novel earns its momentum slowly and by design.
Its length also makes it a poor fit for anyone wanting a quick genre read, however rewarding the total arc is.
Readers should also be aware that the novel depicts frontier violence, and attitudes and language of its period, with the frankness of a book written about — rather than sanitized from — the 1870s West. That is part of the truthfulness its admirers praise, but it is not a gentle read in every chapter.
And because it is the third book in the saga's internal chronology while being the first published, newcomers approaching the series today have to choose between publication order and chronological order; the novel itself, however, stands fully alone.
This Edition and Who It's For
The edition under review is Simon & Schuster's Classic hardcover (November 10, 2000), an 864-page volume with a durable shelf presence; the novel itself dates to 1985, and later printings have included anniversary editions with new forewords. Either way, the text being purchased is the complete Pulitzer-winning novel.
Who is it for? Readers of epic historical fiction who have somehow never gotten to it, first — it rewards the commitment the way few long novels do.
It is equally suited to admirers of the 1989 miniseries curious about the source, to Western skeptics, since its humor and characterization routinely convert readers who think the genre is not for them, and to anyone anticipating the forthcoming Netflix adaptation who wants the original first. For readers who love character-driven storytelling on a vast canvas, Lonesome Dove is not merely recommended; it is close to required.
Sources & Further Reading
The key facts and claims in this review are grounded in the retrieved, verified sources listed below.
- Cited in this review
- 1
- 2
nickwisseman.com
- Further reading
- 3
en.wikipedia.org
- 4
kirkusreviews.com
- 5
biblio.com
- 6
lukeharkness.com
- 7
- 8
words-and-dirt.com
- 9
app.thestorygraph.com
- 10
- 11
books.google.com
- 12
Book Thoughts from Bed
Age & Reading Level
Our age band
Ages 16+
Reading level
Older teens & adults
Our age band groups books for browsing; it isn't an age a review gave.
3 content notes · who it suits
Content to know about
graphic frontier violence, including shootings and hangings
racial slurs and period attitudes of the 1870s West
frank depiction of prostitution and sexual situations
Best for: Adults / mature teens 16+ — frank frontier violence and period attitudes and language rendered without sanitizing
Skip if you want a quick, fast-starting genre Western — this is 864 pages and earns its momentum slowly by design
Larry McMurtry on Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry discusses the origins of 'Lonesome Dove', how he found the title, and the dynamic between Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae.
Uploaded by David Masson Concept Artist, 2020 · Watch on YouTube ·
Finding the title on a church bus
McMurtry says he repeatedly stalled on writing the novel until driving north of Fort Worth and spotting a church bus inscribed with the name of a local church.
Newt as the true 'lonesome dove'
McMurtry reveals that beneath the literal place name, the title metaphorically refers to Newt, who remains solitary because his father will not acknowledge him.
Gus and Call as classic archetypes
McMurtry states that Gus and Call were not modeled on historical Texas cattlemen or acquaintances, but rather on the literary archetype of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
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Why It’s Trending
Netflix Series Adaptation in Development from the East of Eden Team
Netflix just announced it's developing a new Lonesome Dove series, with the same showrunners behind the upcoming East of Eden adaptation. On top of that, BookTok and book-focused Instagram accounts have been buzzing about the novel for weeks, with readers calling it one of the best books they've ever read.
Netflix has confirmed it's developing a new series based on Lonesome Dove, with Zoe Kazan and Jeb Stuart signed on as co-showrunners. The pair are already working together on Netflix's East of Eden adaptation, set to premiere October 1, so there's real momentum behind this team. The rights to all of Larry McMurtry's novels featuring these characters were recently acquired, meaning this could expand into multiple projects — series, films, or both.
The Netflix news hit at exactly the right moment, because Lonesome Dove had already been having a moment on its own. Book creators across BookTok and Instagram have been championing it hard, with many calling it one of the best things they've ever read. Writers and musicians — including poet Elisa Gabbert and musician Kevin Morby — have publicly cited it as a major favorite or influence, which tends to send people straight to their library holds list.
If you've never read it, now is a great time to get ahead of the adaptation. The 1985 novel won the Pulitzer Prize and inspired a beloved 1989 miniseries, so it has a long track record of translating well to the screen. Whether you're a longtime Western fan or just curious what all the fuss is about, this one is worth picking up before the Netflix version drops.