Crazy Horse

Penguin Lives

by Larry McMurtry

Legends cloud the life of Crazy Horse, a seminal figure in American history but an enigma even to his own people in his own day. This superb biography looks back across more than 120 years at the life and death of this great Sioux warrior who became a reluctant leader at the Battle of Little Bighorn. With his uncanny gift for understanding the human psyche, Larry McMurtry animates the character of this remarkable figure, whose betrayal by white representatives of the U.S. government was a tragic turning point in the history of the West. A mythic figure puzzled over by generations of historians, Crazy Horse emerges from McMurtry’s sensitive portrait as the poignant hero of a long-since-vanished epoch.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, Native American, Westerns, Native Americans, American History

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Larry 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."

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit of history about Crazy Horse. I liked the way the author would give an account of an event and then give another two based on other information. He was careful to point out the lack of proper historical information and it seemed to me that he tried to be as unbiased as possible by telling what others have found and said. The author even talked about sources and their historical accuracy. This wasn't just a collection of the myths of Crazy Horse, but a fair look at who he probably really was.

The book also seemed to focus a lot on Custard. I had no problem with this, but can imagine others might. I found these parts quite interesting and it will probably lead to me reading more about Custard specifically.

While I'm not hugely interested in Native American history nor was I all that curious about Crazy Horse, the book kept me interested well enough. I probably would have rated it higher if it was more along my interests. The rating shouldn't necessarily reflect on the author's writing, which I thought was just fine.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

McMurtry paints a stark but engaging (like the Great Plains themselves) portrait of Crazy Horse and the time and place in which he lived. He allows both the real man and the legend to share the stage, giving us a impression of who Crazy Horse might have been (because we'll never know the truth) and who people thought he was. The story of Native Americans during the 19th century is definitely one of incredible sadness, misunderstanding, greed, power politics and bigotry, skating along the line of genocide. The life and death of Crazy Horse is a tragedy in the highest, saddest sense. McMurtry says his last days, hours and minutes could have been written by the Greeks or Shakespeare, which is definitely true; his romantic relationships could have been written by Danielle Steele. McMurtry is a powerful wordsmith, fully worth of writing a biography of someone who should be considered a American tragic hero.

[robin friedman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Prairie Platonist

Several series of short biographies have been published in recent years, including the American Presidents series and the Great Generals series, to give busy readers the opportunity to learn about famous individuals in brief compass. In 1999, Penguin Press initiated its "Penguin Lives" series with this short biography of Crazy Horse by the American novelist, Larry McMurtry. It was an intriguing and appropriate choice. Crazy Horse's life is the stuff of legend. A great deal has been written about Crazy Horse on the basis of what remains a thin historical record. Crazy Horse continues to fascinate many people as shown, among other ways, in the many reviews of McMurtry's book.

McMurtry uses his gifts as a novelist and his formidable historical knowledge of the American West to give the reader insight into an elusive person. McMurtry's book constitutes an exploration of the literature and legends surrounding Crazy Horse as much as it constitutes a biography of the man. This is unavoidable given the state of the historical record. With McMurtry's attempt to sift through the legends, Crazy Horse still emerges in his account as an extraordinary figure. McMurtry gives a convincing portrayal of an important and difficult man in a book of 140 pages. McMurtry makes as much as he can of a person with a rare way of life whom we do not know. To his own people, Crazy Horse was known as "Our Strange Man".

In McMurtry's account, Crazy Horse (1840 -- 1877) emerges as a loner and a mystic. From his youngest days, Crazy Horse went his own way. He was a visionary, in common with many of the Sioux, but frequently sought his vision in ways outside tribal tradition. McMurtry imaginatively captures a great deal of Crazy Horse in this description of the dreams, wanderings, and spiritual quests which were a feature of his adolescence and adult life:

"It is easy on the plains to imagine things not seen, worlds not known. Crazy Horse, in his wanderings over the summer plains, would have seen many mirages, which perhaps encouraged him in his belief that this world, with its buffalo and horses, is only the shadow of the real world. He was in a way a prairie Platonist, seeing an ideal of which the day's events were only a shadow." (pp. 49-50)

Crazy Horse was a hunter of buffalo and a leader of his people in skirmishes and fights with other Indians. As a young man, he became one of four tribal members honored with the title of "Shirt-Wearer" with the responsibility of looking after the well-being of the people, including the poor. When Crazy Horse ran off briefly with Black Buffalo Woman, the wife of another man, he was almost killed by her jealous husband, No Water, and the Tribe was split apart. The rift was healed by intra-tribal diplomacy, but Crazy Horse lost his title of Shirt-Wearer over the incident.

Crazy Horse is best-known for his role in three battles with the onrushing white settlers, Fetterman's Massacre of 1868, the Battle of Rosebud in 1876, and most famously the Battle of Little Bighorn against Custer on June 25, 1876. These battles established Crazy Horse's fame as a great military leader of his people although his role in each of them, especially Little Big Horn, remains uncertain.

After Little Big Horn, Crazy Horse and a group of 900 Indians, exhausted by cold and pursuit, were forced to turn themselves in at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. Four months later, under circumstances that remain difficult to determine, Crazy Horse was tricked into returning to the Fort under a promise of a meeting with the commanding general. Instead, Crazy Horse was to have been exiled to a prison in Florida. A victim of military treachery and of jealousies among his own people, Crazy Horse was assassinated on September 5, 1877.

Crazy Horse, for McMurtry, was a man who was not an administrator or a negotiator. He did not surrender or try to adjust to the inevitability of a new way of life, as did some of his compatriots. He remained faithful to the life of a warrior on the lonely plains, to the hunt, and to the mystic vision to the end. As in many cases, Crazy Horse became a figure of legend because this is what his life merited. Even when we are cognizant of what we do not know, as McMurtry is, a remarkable and enigmatic figure emerges. From the Indian wars and tragedies of the American west, McMurtry offers an account of a person whose life and goals were inextricably tied to a particular people and whose story yet remains universal and timeless.

Robin Friedman

[Michelle Prendergast · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the early 90s my family visited the statue that is being carved into a South Dakota mountain in his image and the National Park on the location of the Little Big Horn Battle in Montana, in which Crazy Horse alongside a coalition of tribes were victorious against the US Cavalry, otherwise known as "Custer's Last Stand." Afterwards, I wondered what about this particular man warranted all of the mythology that has surrounded him in the last two centuries. McMurty's book offers few answers, and in fairness, it seems like anything more definitive would be historical fiction. What he does offer is an explanation for the fanfare surrounding Crazy Horse. By all accounts he was a man who had no interest in following the conventions of others: to some extent he didn't fully conform to some of the propriety demanded of his own people, who were on the whole much more willing to accept nonconformity than the European Americans of the 19th century. McMurty observes that his iconoclast nature makes him the ideal hero for a people whose other great warriors (ie. Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, et al) were subdued on reservations; Crazy Horse, on the other hand, died resisting arrest and refused to relinquish his way of life. While I think McMurty treats his subject objectively, I can't give this biography a 5th star because I was perplexed by the comparisons to native struggles against other colonizing powers (ie. comparisons and quotes from individuals in India and New Guinea resisting their colonizers) -- something about writing that a particular Native American tribe's tactics or objections to Americans invading their territory is just like this other minority group's problems seems reductionist.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for high school students and above. It covers what we know, don't know, and are unsure of in the life of Crazy Horse. An accessible biography.

An interesting symbiosis developed between tribes and traders. The English anthropologist and myth theorist Lord Raglan discussed the fragility of hunting cultures in his book How Came Civilization. He points out that people who had been adept for generations at making bone fishhooks lose this skill quickly once they are supplied with metal fishhooks. What a perceptive realization.

There never was and never would be a chief of all the Sioux. The government often misread this and tried to reach out to a leader who could sign a treaty for everyone.

The Army almost always overreacted and punished any Indian they could whenever something went wrong.

The railroads helped bring about the end of the Indians as much as the military. Buffalo hunters could ride into the heart of buffalo country. Within ten years of the railroads, the buffalo were all gone. And that, of course, spelled the end of the Plains Indians.

[Richard Subber · Rating 5 out of 5]

Apparently it is Larry McMurtry’s goal in life to avoid writing everything I don’t like.

Crazy Horse is a gem: crisp, appealing, well-informed, in McMurtry’s signature style—crafted words, no nonsense, literate. This is a candid assessment of the life and times of Ta-Shunka-Witco (“His horse is crazy”) (c1840-1877).

If there had been no relentless assault against the American Indians by white America and its government, Crazy Horse might have been an anonymous, eccentric figure among the Oglala Sioux. His compatriots probably understood him about as well as we do—that is, not much.

From several points of view, in the middle of the 19th century and now, Crazy Horse was a lone eagle. McMurtry does a commendable job of trying to see the world as Crazy Horse saw it. The world as Crazy Horse wanted it to be was shriveling around him during his entire life.

It’s too bad that Crazy Horse wasn’t born in an earlier, less contentious, more agreeable time. It’s too bad that he couldn’t simply have made his home where the buffalo roam.
Read more of my book reviews and poems here:
http://richardsubber.com/

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crazy Horse has always been one of my American heroes. McMurtry writes a concise and interesting biography of him. American Indians need to be studied by modern day Americans to know who and what Americans really are.

[Ibbo · Rating 3 out of 5]

2025 #88 🌄

Interessante il tentativo dell’autore di tracciare la biografia di un personaggio di cui praticamente non si hanno fonti: alla fine della fiera il libro diventa un sunto della storia dei nativi durante gli anni di vita di Cavallo Pazzo.

[Peggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful and brief biography of Crazy Horse, the legendary Sioux warrior who has become a contemporary icon of resistance. McMurtry is a careful, fair-minded guide into a somewhat murky history: primary sources are rare, contradictory, and unreliable, and some earlier historians apparently supplemented the record with their own imaginings. What I most appreciate is that McMurtry brings clarity to familiar historic individuals through well-chosen details and anecdotes, for example:

Everyone was getting more than a little tired of Red Cloud, but he was both tenacious and smart. He was to be one of the very few Plains Indian leaders of this period who survived everything, dying of old age in 1909.

McMurtry also provides helpful contextual information about the social life and values of the Plains tribes. Something that comes up repeatedly is the chronic misunderstanding of Indian leadership by the whites. This became particularly problematic during critical negotiations with the U.S. government over land and restitution. Sadly, and shamefully, these hard-won treaties and agreements were easily and often broken by the United States, leaving the Indians in increasingly limited conditions and unable to feed themselves in traditional ways.

This book is only 148 pages long and is meant for the interested reader, not the specialist. McMurtry kindly provides an annotated bibliography at the end. Read this for a meticulous presentation of the known facts, with respectful attention to all who deserve it. Look elsewhere for tragic tales; Crazy Horse was a warrior whose end came in part because he remained true to the vision he received as a young man. "Among a broken people an unbroken man can rarely be tolerated--he becomes a too-painful reminder of what the people as a whole had once been." This--his integrity and unbroken spirit--is why we remember Crazy Horse today. He is, simply, an American hero.

[Michelle Stimpson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at the Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota five years ago and have tried to read it a couple of times since and could never get into it. After finishing "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," I picked it back up and couldn't put it down. Many people have criticized McMurtry for his criticism of other writers on the subject, but I found it insightful and amusing. I appreciated his attempt to separate the "myth from the man," while acknowledging that the mythos of Crazy Horse is pretty amazing and an important part of American history. I feel I have a better understanding why so much time, energy, and expense it being put into creating the memorial in the Black Hills. Crazy Horse seems a deserving character to represent the American Indian.

[Ensiform · Rating 3 out of 5]

A placid, ruminative and respectful biography of the Oglala Sioux warrior about whom, McMurtry is at pains to stress, we can know very few true facts. The slim volume tells Crazy Horse's story without presuming: McMurtry sometimes guesses at motives, but gives an array of options and admits that we can only guess. He also tries to tell both sides of the events, and does a fair job at it, considering that few Indians left records except many years later.

McMurtry repudiates the hagiographies, but he does paint a heroic picture, perhaps despite himself, of this man "who had no politics" and died betrayed because of political squabbles. The book is novelistic in its tendency to tell a story by themes; I usually prefer a more chronological approach in general, but this works.

[Christina Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief and engrossing, but assumes you know a little about Crazy Horse and Little Bighorn already

[Michael Holm · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Wiedenfeld & Nicolson Lives series edition is a quick read of 134 pages of puffed print (large margin, line spacing, etc). I imagine that McMurtry was asked to write this biography of Crazy Horse, an Oglala Sioux Indian who was assassinated at an arranged "interview" in 1877 by the US cavalry under the command of General Bradley. The interest in Crazy Horse is stimulated by a huge statue being carved into a mountainous outcrop near Mt Rushmore. Refreshingly, McMurtry immediately confesses that reliable information of Crazy Horse is not available nowadays and he is relying upon sources of questionable veracity. But McMurtry does a masterful job at creating some suspense even though the outcome is well known. The book is really about the Indian vs white men conflict in the northern plains. The plains Indian tribes all participated in the Stone Age cultural practice of raiding as well as hunting. So the invasion of the plains by the American-Europeans was not the moral atrocity of which we have been feeling guilty for so many years, ever since we lost our fear of the native Americans. On the other hand, we definitely did not exhibit moral superiority either. Apparently Crazy Horse was known as a brave warrior and a charitable supporter of the poor, virtues that even we admire. So it is fitting that he is remembered with a huge monumental statue. I appreciate McMurtry's honesty and his thoughtful assessment of this history as in his opinion of General Custer's fate in the famous battle of Little Big Horn.

I rated it three stars because of the brevity and lack of information of Crazy Horse's early life detracted from the sagacious writing.

[Richard Muro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read ….

[Miles Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short good useful biography of the Lakota warrior.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a short, but powerful book. Larry McMurtry did an excellent job of pointing out in numerous ways that there is much conflicting information about Crazy Horse and no definitive record of him. But McMurtry paints a compelling picture of life on the the Plains and the many differing tribes and groups during that time period. It is interesting how he tries to put Crazy Horse in this tableau and I found this book very moving. General Custer is shown to be a reckless showboat whose hubris brought on the Battle of Little Big Horn. Very interesting book.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting concise recounting of the life of Crazy Horse, the last of the resistors among the Sioux people. The book suffers from some problems of style, as has been mentioned by other reviewers, McMurtry comes off as rather cranky and spends much time criticizing previous biographers attempts to cover Crazy Horse's life. The simple fact of the matter is that very little is known about Crazy Horse. His own people had very few recollections of him, and very little can be verified as to his whereabouts, let alone what he said.

It seems fitting that no one knows where exactly Crazy Horse was buried. In many ways he was the last of the rogues, a Rorschacian figure of no compromise who held true to his principles to the very end. He was a tragic figure, but all in all a beautiful warrior who deserves to be remembered and mythologized. Often people with such black and white views can only truly thrive in myth, and if nothing else, this book shows that such a myth does deserve to thrive.

[Michael Gerald · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great, concise biography (from what is known) of one of the Native American leaders who defeated the landgrabbing whites led by Custer and his US 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn).

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Smart, short, and well-written.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't as painful to read as are so many of the books about Crazy Horse.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great little gem of a biography.

[Shelby Burrow · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring as hell I’m gonna be honest… what if we listed every battle and every person and every tribe and every river? And then say “but who knows what really happened….”

[M. Sarki · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/cr...

..at first the pressure of white intrusion may have been subtle and slight, but it was present, and would be present throughout his entire life. The buffalo were there in their millions when he was born but were mostly gone by the time he died…

Let it be said I am a huge fan of Crazy Horse, always was, even when I was not familiar with the injustices of the white man, specifically the greedy ones, the politicians, the warlords, generals like the sleazy yellow-haired General George Armstrong Custer. Then I read Dan O’Brien’s historical novel based on the relationship between Crazy Horse and the doctor Valentine McGillicuddy in The Contract Surgeon. I was severely smitten. And then I was smitten even more by South Dakota and its Black Hills. Beautiful country. And for years now Dan O’Brien has been busy diligently restoring these grassy plains to their original state with his raising of thousands of buffalo. Before that O’Brien saved the endangered peregrine falcon and then he moved on to an even bigger calling. Dan O’Brien is not only a great writer he is also a fine human being. I know this just because of the many books I have read by him and what he does to help save our planet. Larry McMurtry is also from this wild and wooly country of the west but he cannot write like Dan O’Brien. Though sometimes entertaining, McMurtry is a literary lightweight. Hard to get connected with his version of Crazy Horse.

...It is easy on the plains to imagine things not seen, worlds not known…

I have often read that visions can and do occur on these steppes. That is why the Sioux were so enamored with them, that and the buffalo, food for their people, and feelings not much different from the white spiritual leader and guide Ram Dass who preached Love, Serve, Remember, but I doubt Ram Dass killed anybody or took a scalp like Crazy Horse did from time to time. Nevertheless, the plains remain to this day spiritual, and by my lights vision quests are still commonplace and I want one of my own.

...Even Sitting Bull, once he saw the east, was impressed by white power, but was correspondingly depressed by the homeless beggars he encountered on the streets of the white men’s cities. Such a lack of charity would never have been allowed among the Sioux, he pointed out…

Since the time of Newt Gingrich’s reign as Speaker of the House from 1995-1999 I have been disenchanted with right-wing politics and fundamentalist religion. And then for eight years beginning in 2008, more right-wing bullshit and politics that went nowhere but into the gutter with Mitch McConnell vowing to stop any Barack Obama policies and agendas dead in their tracks. And Mitch pretty much succeeded. Then we segue into 2015 and endured almost five years of being tortured and bombarded daily with the diatribes of the clownish orange-skinned buffoon Donald Jay Trump who shockingly became our 45th president of the United States. So between McConnell and Trump we have racism and white supremist bigotry continually pounding on our doors and hearts for a total of twelve long and difficult years. And their followers still have their guns out and drawn, ready to shoot their way into power again if need be. And then Covid 19 and the idiocy of these same GOP fools who continue to follow the lead of their insane and narcissistic leader who clearly lost the election. Very upsetting to say the least, just as sad as this book was to read, knowing what we did to these indigenous people of our United States.

I met a police officer last week at the pool and sauna in my hometown. He is a detective from Canada living in Miami who investigates murders around our state. He informed me that Canada is required by law to teach their entire history in school. Warts and all. Not to cherry pick or rewrite history, but to report it honestly and thoroughly. I wonder when we will ever do the same?

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been interested in Crazy Horse since I read a children's biography of him when I was about 9, and I love some of McMurtry's novels, so I decided to try this book. I'm very glad that I did. Crazy Horse was an unusual man. He was not a chief, though many of the whites thought he was, but he was very respected among the Lakota Sioux. He was generous to those in need, but also unconventional, and often got in trouble by not doing things in the accepted way. For example, he went off alone to have visions, which was reasonable among his people, but he did not go through the traditional procedures first. He just did things his own way, which caused much consternation. Another example comes from his romantic life. He was madly in love with Black Buffalo Woman, but while Crazy Horse was off hunting, she married another man. Contrary to custom, Crazy Horse hung around her tent, which made her husband very jealous. She could have divorced him simply by putting his clothes outside their dwelling, but she had several children with him and, for whatever reason, she didn't opt for divorce. She did run away with Crazy Horse, which angered the elders as this was not how things were done. Crazy Horse was not a political man, but he was a very brave warrior. McMurtry says that many historians claim that Crazy Horse was in battles for which there is no evidence, just supposition. However, he did defeat Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand. Some Indians recognized that they couldn't defeat the whites, who had more guns, and tried to get what they could for their people. Crazy Horse didn't want to appease the whites. Many Sioux were jealous of him, and ultimately, he was betrayed by Indians, much like Malcolm X. McMurtry is excellent at portraying the way Indians looked at things and contrasting it with the way whites did, without idealizing Indians or stereotyping whites. It's nice to read a well-researched history by such an engaging writer.

[Eduardo Santiago · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can feel McMurtry's pain and frustration throughout the whole book. There's so much to grieve over: the loss of a great man and of great Peoples; the lying and destruction and cruelty; the fact that we know so little.

This is a sober and sobering account of an honorable man's life. It is spun out of mere wisps, because we have so few sources and those are all inconsistent among each other. McMurtry is careful to note where the sources are scant or untrustworthy, and tries hard (mostly but not entirely successfully) to avoid conjecture; the result is a short but thoughtful book that has greatly informed and humbled me.

[Sonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

McMurtry is so historically knowledgeable about what we call "early North America" and "the West" that it was almost not surprising that the sound and flavor of his writing voice differs very little from his creative fiction voice. But he also tries to be clear about where History is not clear, and he does also offer differing opinions from other historians. And so like his fictive voice, he seems fair and sounds like he tries to be objective.

[Gabriele Carli · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Per gran parte della sua vita, Cavallo Pazzo non evitò solamente i bianchi ma gli uomini in generale; passava giorni e giorni solo nelle praterie, sognando, vagabondando, cacciando.”

Una pennellata per ritrarre Cavallo Pazzo, dando un calcio agli stereotipi e ai filtri con cui questa leggenda è stata spesso raccontata.

[Joel Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

McMurtry writes concisely about Crazy Horse. With so many gaps in written history of this truly amazing and fascinating person many writers have taken liberties to promote their idea of the man/myth. McMurtry recognizes this and writes with intentionality. I learned a lot and recommend from any fans of history and westerns.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good primer.

[Mateo Toledo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Preciosa biografía.