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Dead Man's Walk
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Dead Man's Walk
Author: Larry McMurtry

Book Information
Publisher: Pocket
Book Type: Paperback
Rating:

ISBN-13: 9780671001162 - ISBN-10: 0671001167
Publication Date: 6/1/1996
Pages: 528


Other Versions of this Book: Audio Cassette (Unabridged), Hardcover, Paperback

Book Description:
In Streets of Laredo, McMurtry brought the story ahead, giving us Call in his old age. Now, in Dead Man's Walk, he takes us back to the days when Gus and Call were young Texas Rangers, first experiencing the wild frontier that will form their characters. We also meet Clara Forsythe, the unforgettable young woman whose effect on Gus McCrae is immediate and unshakable. Danger, sacrifice, comradeship, and love give them the strength and courage to survive against the almost insurmountable odds of the frontier.

In Dead Man's Walk, Gus and Call are not yet twenty, young men coming of age in the days when Texas was still an independent republic. Enlisting as Texas Rangers under a land pirate who wants to seize Santa Fe from the Mexicans, Gus and Call experience their first great adventure in the barren great plains landscape, in which arbitrary violence is the rule -- whether from nature, or from the Indians whose territory they must cross in order to reach New Mexico.

From the Indians defending their land with unrelenting savagery, to the Texans attempting to seize and "civilize" it, and the Mexicans threatened by both, the reckless men of the untamed frontier make this at once a riveting adventure story and a powerful work of literature.


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Similar books to this author and title:
Comanche Moon (Lonesome Dove)Boone's LickStreets of LaredoLonesome DoveThe Wandering Hill : The Berrybender Narratives, Book 2


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Top Member Book Reviews

Lynda C. (Readnmachine) wrote on 2/11/2009...

2 member(s) found this review helpful.

The first adventures of Lonesome Dove's Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, who join the Texas Rangers and set off on an adventure that leads them across the Texas and New Mexico deserts, fighting Indians, Mexicans, and a land that is the deadliest foe of all.

The book does a great job of setting up the characters of Gus and Call, showing them as young and green, but still carrying the personality traits that will be ingrained in them in the later novels. (It should be noted here that though this book deals with events prior to Lonesome Dove, it was written later, as a prequel.)

The story's biggest flaw, however, is a weak and unbelievable ending. It's almost as though McMurtry, having written himself into a corner, got bored with the whole thing and resorted to the time-honored (but no less disappointing) deus ex machina conclusion.


Please Rate these Book Reviews

Shanna V. (shanna71) - OK wrote on 5/29/2008...


I loved the Lonesome Dove series. This is a 5 star read for western lovers.

Robert S. (Bob73) wrote on 2/28/2007...


In his earlier book: "Lonesome Dove", Larry McMurtry breathed new
life into the vanished American West and created two of the most
memorable heros in contemporary fiction:Augustus McCrae and Woodrow
Call. Now McMurtry produces another winner with the story of their
early adventures.

Cheryl W. (booincarrollton) wrote on 3/31/2006...


A very entertaining book.

Terry J. wrote on 9/8/2005...


This is the story before Lonesome Dove

Dominick M. wrote on 6/14/2005...


Not quite as fine as Lonesome Dove but very entertaining.

James S. wrote on 10/18/2004...


Guss & Call, Lonesome Dove partners. This book tells the story of when they were young. Very Good.


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