LEAVING CHEYENNE : A Novel
Product Type: Book
Product Price: $15.00
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
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Description
My foot's in the stirrup,
My pony won't stand;
Goodbye, old partner,
I'm leaving Cheyenne.
-- Old cowboy song
Leaving Cheyenne, Larry McMurtry's second novel, traces the loves of three West Texas characters as they follow that sundown trail: Gideon Fry, the serious rancher; Johnny McCloud, the free-spirited cowhand; and Molly Taylor, the sensitive woman they both love and who bears them each a son. Tragic circumstances mark the trail but McMurtry's style never turns melodramatic or sentimental.
Reviews
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2010-07-16
Summary: "Early McMurtry"
Larry McMurtry's LEAVING CHEYENNE has hints of the brillance that would come
with HORSEMAN, PASS BY and LONESOME DOVE. At the heart of the narrative is a love triangle between Gid, Johnny and Molly over sixty years. Love is actually the wrong word as selfishness is at the heart of each, but so is heartbreak. And yet, there are tiny moments of grace and redemption, be they ever so slight and then immediately gone. Not an easy book to read by any means, but one that contains some early laughs and deep thoughts about how quickly live moves and how decisions one makes young last a lifetime.
Rating: 4 / 5
Date: 2009-05-29
Summary: "Smooth story-telling, touching, and worthwhile"
This early effort by master writer Larry McMurtry is one of his finer works and worth reading by all McMurtry fans and anyone interested in a book of the contemporary West. Using first person, the book captures the essence and the lives of three people including their fears, their joys, their sorrows, and mostly their reactions to the various events that occur. The odd love triangle somehow seems normal and even improves upon their lives.
Each person is unique with an individual personality and value system and the love of each other shines forth with a rare kind of emotion that is not easily dismissed. This makes the expansive story seem personal regardless of the extensive time period being covered. As they play out their lives and their disappointments, they somehow retain their optimism through the special relationships that exist and never seem to wane.
Humorous situations abound throughout the book and the tender moments are balanced with energy and action. Obviously McMurty's perceptions about people and his experience living in the West find accurate fruition in this marvelous story. Leaving Cheyenne is a special book that allows the reader moments of reflection and admiration of hard work, friendships, and constant love of life and people. While hints of the future Pulitzer prize winning author can be found, at the same time, this book stands alone and does not need comparison to other McMurtry books.
Leaving Cheyenne is highly recommended and upon completion will not be forgotten. A wonderful read in all respects. While the ending was necessary, it was also rather...okay, need to avoid a spoiler!
Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2009-03-16
Summary: "Futility in Texas"
A sense of finality and futility awaits the reader at the end of Leaving Cheyenne by Larry McMurty. The three narrators, whose lives span the period between the late 1800s and the mid-to-late 1900s, seem to expend effort and achieve little for their daily struggles. Conscientious Gideon Fry, married to Mabel, extends his beloved Texas ranch, increasing its acreage through years of work. Best friend Johnny McCloud, carefree cowboy, earns his living in others' employ but also holds on to his nearby tiny plot. Shared lover, Molly Taylor, tends her adjoining hardscrabble farm faithfully. Although married to Eddie White, she gives birth to two boys, one by Gideon and one by Johnny, both sons later killed in World War II military service. When Eddie accidentally falls to his death from an oil derrick, Molly continues her relationships with Gid and Johnny and her solitary dedication to her lifelong home. They all are overcome by changes in technology and transportation, leaving behind their beloved Texas land which is unlikely to be similarly respected and cultivated by others.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2008-09-21
Summary: "A Master Storyteller Struts His Stuff"
To readers of this space it is no surprise that I am reviewing a Larry McMurtry novel. I have "discovered" this little Texas gem of an author recently (although I knew of him and some of his work earlier). Naturally, once I get "high" on an author I tend to read everything that I can get my hands on. A partial reason for that is that the number of fiction writers who hold my attention is rather limited, but mainly I like to see the high and low sides of the writer's career so that I can revel in the reflected glory of my very good choice in picking the author to comment on. I also tend to read an author's output as I lay my hands on his or her work rather than any particular order. Thus, at present I am reviewing this late work (2004) and an early work Leaving Cheyenne (1962) at the same time. Loop Group definitely suffers in comparison to that earlier work.
If I tried to put my finger on what is the outstanding attribute of a good Larry McMurtry read that would most probably be that he is a thoughtful and credible storyteller. The structure of such a story permits one to sift through life's issues whether it is the vagaries of coming of age, the trauma of a mid-life crisis or the grimness of the struggle against mortality. This, moreover, has nothing to with locale or occupation. As a die-hard older urban Northerner Western stories, modern or from the Old West, would not usually be my natural choice of reading. However, when McMurtry is in his "high" story telling mode and he develops incidents that are believable and has characters do things that seem within the realm of human experience -and that permit one to care about and reflect upon the fates of the characters if only for the length of the story- then he is a premier American writer. That, fortunately, is the case here. Here we have "high" McMurtry. Why?
There are many ways to tell a love story. There are many ways to conceive of a love triangle, as here with the saga of the lives of Gid, Johnny and Molly out in West Texas, just East of Eden in Thalia by McMurtry's lights, in roughly the middle third of the 20th century. There are many ways to put obstacles in the way of a satisfactory resolution of a love triangle in puritanically-driven America. McMurtry has come up with a very innovative method of doing this. In the first section we get the all the tensions of young love, hindered by a father-inspired driven sense of responsibility, as told by Gid. In the second section we get the mixed fruits of that puritan sense of responsibility on Gid's part, the lack of it on Johnny's part and also of girlish indecision as told by Molly, with the proviso that as she tells her tale she is a mother who has lost two sons to war and paid a pretty high price for that earlier indecision. In the final segment we get the inevitable struggle against the vicissitudes of mortality, as told humorously and with a little pathos by Johnny.
This is nicely done and the individual stories are woven together almost seamlessly so that the first event concerning Gid's and Johnny's rivalry for Molly described by Gid in Chapter One gets a very different look as told by Johnny at the end forty years later. Moreover, with some other nice humorous touches added alone the way concerning some of the minor characters like Molly's father and an old goat herder, including animals, as well as exploration of the necessary hardships of running a ranch, a labor-intensive business operation subject to all the randomness of nature. But, better than that we are given an emotional roller coaster ride as these three West Texas characters try to make sense of life, their previous histories and their entanglements together. If Loop Group was a low in the literary marathon McMurtry is running then Leaving Cheyenne is prima facie evidence for his honored place in the American literary pantheon. Kudos.
Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2007-06-21
Summary: "Authentic writing"
This is pre-Hollywood McMurtry and, I feel, his best. He can make you laugh and cry, but this novel does more. It helps me understand my grandmother & grandfather more (Crockett County, Texas ranchers) and is a wonderful glimpse at a life so different from current American pop culture.
I read Anna Karenina and was struck by how similar the issues discussed in the book were to contemporary issues half a world away. I read Leaving Cheyenne and am struck by how different my values and lifestlye are compared to just two generations ago in the same geography.
This book is such a pleasant and mature read. When you want to escape and admire something that is close to you but eerily alien, this book can put you there.