I started this book soon after finishing Dead Man’s Walk back in June. I stalled about 100 pages in, and kind of stopped reading. I didn’t even remember The Vegetarian by Han Kang until my wife asked me about it after hearing that she was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Han Kang, that is, not my wife (though, I would totally award my wife a Nobel Prize).
Anyway. I talked a co-worker of mine into reading Lonesome Dove a few months ago, and he’s been slowly plodding along. He just started Comanche Moon a few weeks ago, and I think he was secretly trying to finish the series before me. I couldn’t let that happen, so I’ve been reading it in earnest over the last week to finish it before him.
The chronological series order for the Lonesome Dove saga is Dead Man’s Walk (early 1840s), Comanche Moon (1850s-60s), Lonesome Dove (early 1870s), and Streets of Laredo (1890s). Lonesome Dove was written first (1985), and was followed almost ten years later by Streets of Laredo (1993), Dead Man’s Walk (1995), and Comanche Moon (1997). Each book has been adapted into a TV mini-series, with an unconnected Return to Lonesome Dove series that Larry McMurtry had no part in. There were also a couple Lonesome Dove series starring Will from Will & Grace that I quite liked as a kid, which followed the character of Newt.
Lonesome Dove is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I write that without reservation. Streets of Laredo and Dead Man’s Walk were both good, but were lacking something. Without giving away too many spoilers, Dead Man’s Walk took place decades after its predecessor. Not all the characters were still alive, and the main character was….really old. The book didn’t have the charm or humor of Lonesome Dove, though it may have been a truer representation of the themes McMurtry wanted to explore in these books. Dead Man’s Walk, on the other hand, felt looser and had more humor to – but it wasn’t as developed or thoughtful.
Prior to reading Comanche Moon, I felt like Lonesome Dove was a bit of lightning in a bottle. I love McMurtry’s writing – and he’s certainly written a lot of other things that were successful and acclaimed (Horsemen, Pass By, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain…), but I was kind of thinking that maybe this series wasn’t as great as its eponymous first entry.
And then I actually finished this book. It all kind of came together in Comanche Moon.
Dead Man’s Walk is the birth of the West. It takes place in the Republic of Texas, prior to the Mexican-American War and details Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call joining the Texas Rangers. Comanche Moon details the Anglo-American wars against the Comanche, and their eventual destruction of Comancheria and solidification of their southern border, along with the the internal strife of the Civil War and turn to the West. Lonesome Dove details the uncomfortable peace in a Texas that is no longer the frontier, and the search for conflict and excitement in a country that doesn’t really have a need for them anymore. Streets of Laredo concludes the story by showing how the Indian Wars came to an end, and America transitioned away from Westward expansion and towards settlement and “civilization”. Territories became states, mining communities became cities, the West became mythology.
I was wrong to think these books were disjointed and uneven. There’s a cohesive throughline throughout the story, and it all clicked in place with Comanche Moon. This book is also the tonal bridge between the thinness of Dead Man’s Walk and the depth of Lonesome Dove. The characters grow up in this book, and are on their way to the listlessness of late-middle age. They grow from being young men who don’t know anything about being a Ranger to being veterans with decades of experience.
It was masterful seeing this all play out and come together.
