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Sacagawea's Nickname: Essays on the American West
The author of Lonesome Dove and other great novels about the American West takes readers on a non-fiction exploration of his favorite region, sharing eleven essays originally published in The New Yorker.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
5 people are currently reading
320 people want to read
About the author
Larry McMurtry
150 books4,097 followersLarry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
June 27, 2024
Another book of McMurtry's historical essays on the American West that I should definitely re-read -- especially since I rated it at "A+" on first reading, back around 2002. I don't think I ever re-read the book, to my surprise. I'm also slightly surprised at the number of other readers who didn't much care for the book.
2024 reread notes: Not quite as good as I recalled, but the best essays carry the book. Here's the review that came closest to my reaction: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read that one first, and then I'll add some comments.
McMurtry was an outstanding essayist, and these include some of his best. Even the weaker ones are worth reading, and the whole collection is under 180 pp, in the hc edition I just read. So we're not talking a major time commitment here.
Here's a telling quote from Chapter 4, on a little-known historian of the sad story of the Indians resettled in what became the state of Oklahoma, where I grew up. The Oglala chief Red Cloud recalled in his old age:
"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land, and they took it."
Well. I could add more quotes -- but if you are a McMurtry fan, and/or are interested in his take on Western history, you really shouldn't miss this one. This was a strong 4-star reread for me, and I expect to revisit it down the line. High marks.
2024 reread notes: Not quite as good as I recalled, but the best essays carry the book. Here's the review that came closest to my reaction: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Read that one first, and then I'll add some comments.
McMurtry was an outstanding essayist, and these include some of his best. Even the weaker ones are worth reading, and the whole collection is under 180 pp, in the hc edition I just read. So we're not talking a major time commitment here.
Here's a telling quote from Chapter 4, on a little-known historian of the sad story of the Indians resettled in what became the state of Oklahoma, where I grew up. The Oglala chief Red Cloud recalled in his old age:
"They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one: they promised to take our land, and they took it."
Well. I could add more quotes -- but if you are a McMurtry fan, and/or are interested in his take on Western history, you really shouldn't miss this one. This was a strong 4-star reread for me, and I expect to revisit it down the line. High marks.
February 5, 2008
Non-fiction essays by Larry McMurtry are almost always a delight for me, and there are some wonderful essays in this collection. However, I found that several of the first essays in this book were repetitive of material he has written about in other recent non-fiction books about the west, and in two essays I found entire sentences that seem to be exactly the same as those I have read in his biography on Crazy Horse and his book about Bill Cody and Annie Oakley.
But soem of these essay are McMurtry are his best - funny, ornery, informative, casting a lightly critical eye on the absurdity that came out of the efforts of white Americans to define and study the west, especially the native American peoples. I laughed out loud throughout the wonderfull essay Zuni, and I emphatically recommend it anyone with an interest in Native American history, which of course if far too often written by or translated by whites, who often miss a lot on what they're seeing and hearing.
Othe good essays in this collection are: A Heroine of The Praries (about the historian Angtie Debo), Powell of the Colorado, Cookie Pioneers (a very funny critical yet sympathetic review of the recent book of western revisionist historian Patricia Nelson Limerick) and two essays near the end about Lewis and Clark and their journey of the Corps of Discovery. The first essay is about the literary merits of the actual book that the was published as a result of their endeavors, and the second is the piece that give this collection its title, as it is about the Shoshone woman Sacagawea. That is a particularly nice piece by McMurtry.
In summary, this collection as a whole is uneven, but some of the essays are delighftul. This is a quick read.
But soem of these essay are McMurtry are his best - funny, ornery, informative, casting a lightly critical eye on the absurdity that came out of the efforts of white Americans to define and study the west, especially the native American peoples. I laughed out loud throughout the wonderfull essay Zuni, and I emphatically recommend it anyone with an interest in Native American history, which of course if far too often written by or translated by whites, who often miss a lot on what they're seeing and hearing.
Othe good essays in this collection are: A Heroine of The Praries (about the historian Angtie Debo), Powell of the Colorado, Cookie Pioneers (a very funny critical yet sympathetic review of the recent book of western revisionist historian Patricia Nelson Limerick) and two essays near the end about Lewis and Clark and their journey of the Corps of Discovery. The first essay is about the literary merits of the actual book that the was published as a result of their endeavors, and the second is the piece that give this collection its title, as it is about the Shoshone woman Sacagawea. That is a particularly nice piece by McMurtry.
In summary, this collection as a whole is uneven, but some of the essays are delighftul. This is a quick read.
February 18, 2012
Some writers are so closely associated with the region they write about that to try to separate them from their settings would be like trying to take a fish out of water.
This book contains essays about the West. All of the essays were beautifully constructed. While McMurtry discusses at length the creation of the myths that surround the region, much of this book seems to have the intention of telling the stories of the West in an unsentimental and slightly brutal fashion (which is very western).
I suppose I cannot write this review properly without some personal information. I was born and bred out West. I was born in North Dakota and to this day, most of my extended family live there. I spent most of my childhood in another western state with a plain view of the Big Horn Mountains. Twice a year, my family would drive up to the big city (passing the site of Custer's Last Stand (aka The Battle of Little Big Horn) in order to buy clothes for the next season. My high school abutted a field where cattle grazed, so when the wind was right (or, actually, wrong), the whole building would reek of cow manure. My favorite high school teacher, who taught English, was a compact, short-tempered little cowboy who entertained the school at large with his ongoing, bitter feud with the other English teacher, who was a feminist. Looking back at what I remember of his classes, every semester we would read one Shakespeare play and one classic book (such as The Great Gatsby or The Nick Adams Stories) which I'm now positive the powers-that-be insisted on, and the rest of the time was spent reading books like The Big Sky, The War on Powder River and The Ox-Bow Incident. I also was introduced to Larry McMurtry's book Lonesome Dove, for which I am grateful.
As a person who did not choose to live out West, I found none of the romance of the region that many others did. The emptiness, the lack of history, and the provincialism grated on me. (I do miss the cultural acceptance of a maverick attitude, though.) I left as soon as I graduated high school. The whole idea of moving out West again is something that I have nightmares about.
I'm not sure if any book can overcome such obstacles. I certainly didn't feel any nostalgia or urge to visit, but I will say that, in this book as well as in his other books, he captures the essence of the West. There is a unflinching realism and a sort of casual acceptance of the harshness of life that I recognize when I read his works as being the environment that I grew up in. That sort of authenticity is not something that all Western writers have, yet it is absolutely essential to understanding the region and its people.
As far as I'm concerned, McMurtry is the voice of the West. It's not a voice that completely resonates with me, but I can recognize it for what it is.
This book contains essays about the West. All of the essays were beautifully constructed. While McMurtry discusses at length the creation of the myths that surround the region, much of this book seems to have the intention of telling the stories of the West in an unsentimental and slightly brutal fashion (which is very western).
I suppose I cannot write this review properly without some personal information. I was born and bred out West. I was born in North Dakota and to this day, most of my extended family live there. I spent most of my childhood in another western state with a plain view of the Big Horn Mountains. Twice a year, my family would drive up to the big city (passing the site of Custer's Last Stand (aka The Battle of Little Big Horn) in order to buy clothes for the next season. My high school abutted a field where cattle grazed, so when the wind was right (or, actually, wrong), the whole building would reek of cow manure. My favorite high school teacher, who taught English, was a compact, short-tempered little cowboy who entertained the school at large with his ongoing, bitter feud with the other English teacher, who was a feminist. Looking back at what I remember of his classes, every semester we would read one Shakespeare play and one classic book (such as The Great Gatsby or The Nick Adams Stories) which I'm now positive the powers-that-be insisted on, and the rest of the time was spent reading books like The Big Sky, The War on Powder River and The Ox-Bow Incident. I also was introduced to Larry McMurtry's book Lonesome Dove, for which I am grateful.
As a person who did not choose to live out West, I found none of the romance of the region that many others did. The emptiness, the lack of history, and the provincialism grated on me. (I do miss the cultural acceptance of a maverick attitude, though.) I left as soon as I graduated high school. The whole idea of moving out West again is something that I have nightmares about.
I'm not sure if any book can overcome such obstacles. I certainly didn't feel any nostalgia or urge to visit, but I will say that, in this book as well as in his other books, he captures the essence of the West. There is a unflinching realism and a sort of casual acceptance of the harshness of life that I recognize when I read his works as being the environment that I grew up in. That sort of authenticity is not something that all Western writers have, yet it is absolutely essential to understanding the region and its people.
As far as I'm concerned, McMurtry is the voice of the West. It's not a voice that completely resonates with me, but I can recognize it for what it is.
November 17, 2023
Read this one on a train bound westward from Omaha, Nebraska. I expected many tales on the visionary and legendary aspects of the West, which are woven as themes throughout, but the actual structure of this book is different.
Mostly read as separate book reviews, McMurtry explores the three ages of the West — Heroes, Publicity, and Suburbia — and how we got from the first age to the third, including what we destroyed in the process.
What really stands out in this collection is the brilliance of McMurtry’s writing. Each essay ends with a sharp exclamation, a gun being drawn from the hip, leaving you with the violent and abrupt bullet hole in the chest, a stark reminder of the difference between the fantasy of the West and its more sad reality.
One such essay that explores the difference between illusion and reality is “Inventing the West,” where McMurtry details the careers of Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill Cody as they put on Wild West shows, or the selling of the West: “The main reason the Old West became so enormously popular as entertainment was that the great endines of the media were well stoked before the actual settling was even half completed.”
He echoes this theme in “A Heroine of the Prairies,” an essay on Angie Debo who chronicled the less-sexy aspect of the West — the Second Dispossession of the Five Civilized Tribes — managing to tell the story of the tribes through the Native American point of view, rather than the white soldiers’ as was so common in the retelling of the West
In “Powell of the Colorado,” McMurtry describes the folly of John Wesley Powell in his warning of settling the West, through the story of his explorations of the Colorado River, which “has essentially died as a part of nature, to be reborn as money.” Powell foolishly “thought that, in an age of science, people would get enough of romanticizing the West.”
The titular essay follows a less-known story about one of the only female Native Americans that make it into our American histories. By offering a narrative on Janey, the nickname of Sacagawea, we get a few glimpses of the actual woman, who had a bumbling husband, a strong friendship with William Clark, and an innocent child, which kept her in Clark’s loving graces.
We finally end with a contemporary retelling of history of the legendary Missouri River, or Old Misery, the nickname for the nasty, filthy, mud-ridden river that stretches across the West and serves as a symbol for so much, including the danger aand haardships that came with settling the land and securing a home on the frontier.
We hear more of the mountainmen, who vastly contributed to lore and legend, but little to literature, alongside a short history of Spanish, French, and British settlers on the continent, aand the Missouri’s role as a transporter of traders. He laments the death of this mystic West, the natural, untamed wilderness and native people’s vigor that was soon spoiled by settlers, but captured in the beauty of artwork by Carlin, Bodmer, and Miller:
“Thanks to the character, courage, and ability of these few men we can now know what the West was like before the prairie was plowed, the buffalo killed, the native peoples broken, and the mighty Missouri damned.”
Sacagawea’s Nickname is a quest for this truth, the real kind of West, unspoiled by the legend, lore, and destruction of white settlers, and when dusted off, a new view that counters our preconceived notions of everything that we think of when we think of the West.
Mostly read as separate book reviews, McMurtry explores the three ages of the West — Heroes, Publicity, and Suburbia — and how we got from the first age to the third, including what we destroyed in the process.
What really stands out in this collection is the brilliance of McMurtry’s writing. Each essay ends with a sharp exclamation, a gun being drawn from the hip, leaving you with the violent and abrupt bullet hole in the chest, a stark reminder of the difference between the fantasy of the West and its more sad reality.
One such essay that explores the difference between illusion and reality is “Inventing the West,” where McMurtry details the careers of Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill Cody as they put on Wild West shows, or the selling of the West: “The main reason the Old West became so enormously popular as entertainment was that the great endines of the media were well stoked before the actual settling was even half completed.”
He echoes this theme in “A Heroine of the Prairies,” an essay on Angie Debo who chronicled the less-sexy aspect of the West — the Second Dispossession of the Five Civilized Tribes — managing to tell the story of the tribes through the Native American point of view, rather than the white soldiers’ as was so common in the retelling of the West
In “Powell of the Colorado,” McMurtry describes the folly of John Wesley Powell in his warning of settling the West, through the story of his explorations of the Colorado River, which “has essentially died as a part of nature, to be reborn as money.” Powell foolishly “thought that, in an age of science, people would get enough of romanticizing the West.”
The titular essay follows a less-known story about one of the only female Native Americans that make it into our American histories. By offering a narrative on Janey, the nickname of Sacagawea, we get a few glimpses of the actual woman, who had a bumbling husband, a strong friendship with William Clark, and an innocent child, which kept her in Clark’s loving graces.
We finally end with a contemporary retelling of history of the legendary Missouri River, or Old Misery, the nickname for the nasty, filthy, mud-ridden river that stretches across the West and serves as a symbol for so much, including the danger aand haardships that came with settling the land and securing a home on the frontier.
We hear more of the mountainmen, who vastly contributed to lore and legend, but little to literature, alongside a short history of Spanish, French, and British settlers on the continent, aand the Missouri’s role as a transporter of traders. He laments the death of this mystic West, the natural, untamed wilderness and native people’s vigor that was soon spoiled by settlers, but captured in the beauty of artwork by Carlin, Bodmer, and Miller:
“Thanks to the character, courage, and ability of these few men we can now know what the West was like before the prairie was plowed, the buffalo killed, the native peoples broken, and the mighty Missouri damned.”
Sacagawea’s Nickname is a quest for this truth, the real kind of West, unspoiled by the legend, lore, and destruction of white settlers, and when dusted off, a new view that counters our preconceived notions of everything that we think of when we think of the West.
January 13, 2018
An awesome resource for further reading about the American West. McMurtry's use of language is neither overbearing nor too simple (though his repeated use of "from whence" seems like an editorial oversight.)
Having read this book I am now looking forward to the many sources listed within. Touching on the myths, heroes, legends, as well as the poets, realists, and other characters of the West, I've gained a much better understanding that this region and its history are largely misrepresented by popular media. In my own travels throughout the West this has become increasingly clear, though somewhat muted by the marketer's approach of using myth as tourist bait.
In recent years I have read Ambrose's work about the Lewis & Clark expedition. McMurtry notes that we now have available the complete journals of that expedition, available through the University of Nebraska (https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu). These journals - all 5000 pages of them - will be a great use of my Kindle reader since I'm not planning on lugging around all of that pulp.
Having read this book I am now looking forward to the many sources listed within. Touching on the myths, heroes, legends, as well as the poets, realists, and other characters of the West, I've gained a much better understanding that this region and its history are largely misrepresented by popular media. In my own travels throughout the West this has become increasingly clear, though somewhat muted by the marketer's approach of using myth as tourist bait.
In recent years I have read Ambrose's work about the Lewis & Clark expedition. McMurtry notes that we now have available the complete journals of that expedition, available through the University of Nebraska (https://lewisandclarkjournals.unl.edu). These journals - all 5000 pages of them - will be a great use of my Kindle reader since I'm not planning on lugging around all of that pulp.
July 21, 2021
McMurtry has done more than anyone to demythologize the American West , and yet early on in this series of essays he readily pays homage to the power of myth. It’s as if to say that no matter how much he and others do to set the record straight, the myths created by the Wild West shows of Buffalo Bill Cody, et al, and reinforced in pulp novels and Hollywood movies will continue to hold sway over the popular imagination.
I’m reminded of the quote from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” - “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Nevertheless, McMurtry spins his wheels again through about a dozen essays, trying to set the record straight for those willing to pick up this volume and read it. Some of his references will seem obscure, to students of history as well as to those steeped in the lore of pop culture, but therein lies much of the value in this volume - acquainting the reader with several lesser known but pivotal figures in the history of the West.
A short but worthwhile read and one that provides the interested with a number of references for further study.
I’m reminded of the quote from “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” - “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
Nevertheless, McMurtry spins his wheels again through about a dozen essays, trying to set the record straight for those willing to pick up this volume and read it. Some of his references will seem obscure, to students of history as well as to those steeped in the lore of pop culture, but therein lies much of the value in this volume - acquainting the reader with several lesser known but pivotal figures in the history of the West.
A short but worthwhile read and one that provides the interested with a number of references for further study.
April 14, 2019
Larry McMurtry is as good an essayist as he is a novelist, and "Sacagawea's Nickname" is a fine example of this abilities as an essayist. I was, however, thrown a bit by the subtitle: "Essay on the American West." I expected a series of essays on just that, the American West—insights into Manifest Destiny, Native populations, outlaws, cowboys, the Indian Wars, and the like. Not so. This book is a collection of reviews of books about the American West. This fact doesn't make McMurtry's essays any less valuable or intriguing. I just had to adjust my expectations a little. He is still a master of writer. And if there was any doubts about his intellectual chops, "Sacagawea's Nickname" will dispel them. For the son of a cowboy who grew up in the tiny hamlet of Archer City, Texas, McMurtry became a widely read bibliophile and expert stylist.
August 5, 2025
I have gained even more respect for McMurtry than I already had after reading this. His prose is neat, intelligent, easy to follow, and entirely different from both the fiction and non-fiction books of his that I've read previously. It's clear that he's massively intelligent, that writing "Lonesome Dove" - the best book of all time - wasn't just luck. His knowledge of the history of the west is on full display here, and one could spend years reading the tantalizing recommendations of other works he mentions throughout these essays. I did absorb several "neat facts" - but not as many as I expected. I also found the essays a bit rambling, and sometimes struggled to find an underlying theme in each of them.
March 11, 2018
Larry McMurtry has a deep love and respect for the West - both the fact and the legend. His depth of knowledge across disciplines - history, literature, anthropology - provides for interesting insight. Take, for example, linking the commercial basis of the rendezvous system used by trappers and merchants with the current day Harley-Davidson rendezvous in Sturgis, South Dakota. In these reports from the 1990s he deals with interesting assessments of Sacagawea's emerging feminism and suffragette; the superhighway travelers called the Little Misery River; and a West without chili, which does not contain a recipe. With McMurtry, one could hope, because you know he has one.
April 22, 2023
An enjoyable if rambling series of essays on the way the West has been explored, mythologized, de-mythologized, and used as inspiration for artistic endeavor. "Garrulous" would be a good word to use for McMurtry's style. He tends to get distracted when a side-issue or little known detail interests him, and in fact it is hard to pin down any sustained argument in most of these essays. I enjoy McMurtry's writing style, and the subject of history and its uses/misuses interests me, so I didn't mind wandering the territory while my guide pointed to this and that. Also, though I've done some reading in modern Western history, I still learned a lot from the book.
January 7, 2020
McMurtry is an indispensable figure in literature of the West, and here he collects several of his essays about the region in an effort to probe what the West really is. The essays are always succinct and funny and informative, but taken as a whole, the collection could have used more context. Each essay was more or less enjoyable, but I'm still not sure why these essays were chosen. That being said, at the very least, McMurtry identified several books to add to my want-to-read list.
Read
November 16, 2021The title article is so moving for historians and women. Sacagawea was the first woman to vote, on where to camp, and she had her baby in the tent with the help of Captain Clark, who apparently loved her little boy and his antics. The idea that a slight woman went all those miles in all that hardship with her hapless, clumsy, cranky husband, makes her such a hero who died shortly after her return to the Mandans.
June 23, 2023
Not really my normal type of book, but am a fan of McMurtry and picked this up while on vacation. There were enough tidbits of information in this to keep it somewhat interesting. There was also a considerable amount of descriptions of other historical works. The good: quick read and I learned a few things. The bad: too much I didn't have an interest in and found myself wanting to skip parts.
August 25, 2017
This was just ok but that's because it wasn't what I was expecting. It was more about the authors who wrote about the authors who wrote about the west then the west itself. There was definitely some in there but I found myself skimming a lot just to get to those parts.
June 10, 2020
I especially enjoyed the chapters on western authors.
January 24, 2021
While McMurtry is known for his western-themed fiction, he also is a scholar of the American West as well -- as this slim volumes proves. It was worth reading just to discover Sacagawea's nickname!
November 9, 2022
Love all of McMurtry's work, including this.
Read
May 6, 2023A collection of essays about the "West" in the broadest of terms by Larry McMurtry, published mostly for New Atlantic in the late 1990s. It's funny because in a lot of ways this is such a pre-9/11 book, a designation I don't think about much these days, but was of consequence at the time. A lot of American Studies texts in the 1990s, and this book, while not an academic American Studies book, has the flavor and sentiment of one, and references many of the same authors you'd find in an American Studies course, especially about the west, is similar, were dealing with how the US took concepts developed first in colonial settlement, pushed West with Manifest Destiny and Westward expansion, and eventually carried over seas to the Philippines, Cuba, Panama, and eventually Vietnam (at least to hit the highlights). The 1990s began with George HW Bush declaring that we had "kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all [vv: which was a lie of course]" when we got involved in the Iraq-Kuwait War. The 1990s were often a time of exploring that relationship and reckoning with some of America's past. 9/11 of course reset a lot of that debate publicly and getting involved in Iraq again spent the cachet built up by the "unity" we professed.
All of this is the say that this Larry McMurtry feels like an artifact in a lot of ways. Learning about John Wesley Powell, or having Larry McMurtry talk about his appreciation of Wallace Stegner or Patricia Limerick is great, but just feels like a different time. Like plenty of his other works, there's a great reading list in her for those who want, some niche history as well, but also a discourse that still feels necessary, but also feels like it left us behind.
All of this is the say that this Larry McMurtry feels like an artifact in a lot of ways. Learning about John Wesley Powell, or having Larry McMurtry talk about his appreciation of Wallace Stegner or Patricia Limerick is great, but just feels like a different time. Like plenty of his other works, there's a great reading list in her for those who want, some niche history as well, but also a discourse that still feels necessary, but also feels like it left us behind.
October 5, 2024
Larry McMurtry fans, like myself, should enjoy this collection of 12 essays about the West and Western literature that he wrote for the New York Review of Books magazine between 1997 and 2001. McMurtry writes about such key Western events and characters as John Wesley Powell, Wallace Stegner, Zane Grey, the Five Civilized Tribes, anthropology and anthropologists, John Ford and John Wayne, and some people I had never previously known about. It was both entertaining and interesting to discover his opinions and insights on such important stories. I recommend this for McMurtry fans and readers generally interested in the American West.
July 19, 2016
I have read any non-fiction by McMurtry until this book and then what a jewel. He is acerbic, sarcastic and scathing of pretenders and pulpers who pretend to know and write about the West. The true West where we live. Of special scorn are the doctoral students from Yale who have flooded the market with inaccurate depictions of the West. A great read. And oh yeah--Sacagawea's nickname was Janey--given by Capt. William Clark who had a crush on her.
August 14, 2010
This slim collection of essays, the majority of them inspired by books about the Old West, continues McMurtry's project, best known from his fiction, of examining the realities of the opening and settling of the West. Some very moving essays in here, especially the title piece which succeeds in reclaiming humanity for Sacagawea and capturing the tragedy of her mythologization.
January 27, 2016
A short read with lots of interesting little nuggets of info and stories. But uneven quality and not a cohesive collection just vaguely related since everything is about the American West but all different time periods, topics etc. Probably the best part of the book is that I did get some good leads on other books to read like Ceremony.
November 5, 2008
while i really enjoy mcmurty's writing style, i was hoping this would be more historical fact but i walked away with knowing more of his take on the Olde West and i must say i enjoyed reading every page!
December 28, 2015
Some of the most learned opinions one could hope to find. To paraphrase Vernon Reid, he writes likes most of us breathe. Super readable, and chock of full literary insights and wonderful wordplay. Tough to beat.
July 14, 2009
it's been awhile since I read Lonesome Dove, but I don't remember McMurtry having this arch style in his fiction...but it makes his essays very readable, very funny.
January 2, 2012
Filled with interesting facts about the old west and the authors opinions on how it affects the present. The first I've read by Larry but have enjoyed his Lonesome Dove for years. Worth the read.
January 12, 2014
Excellent essays about the myth of the American west. Her nickname, by the way, was Janey.
September 19, 2007
BORING!
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews