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The Last Kind Words Saloon
The Last Kind Words Saloon | Larry McMurtry
12 posts | 18 read | 14 to read
The triumphant return of Larry McMurtry with this ballad in prose: his heartfelt tribute to a bygone era of the American West. Larry McMurtry has done more than any other living writer to shape our literary imagination of the American West. With The Last Kind Words Saloon, he returns to the vivid and unsparing portrait of the nineteenth-century and cowboy lifestyle made so memorable in his classic Lonesome Dove. Evoking the greatest characters and legends of the Old Wild West, McMurtry tells the story of the closing of the American frontier through the travails of two of its most immortal figures: Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday. Long Grass, Texas. Once hailed as heroes for their days of subduing drunks in Abilene and Dodge - more often with a mean look than a pistol - the taciturn Wyatt now idles away his time between bottles, while the dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc is more adept at poker than extracting teeth. With the buffalo herds gone, the Comanche defeated, and vast swaths of the Great Plains enclosed by cattle ranches, Wyatt and Doc live on, even as the storied West that forged their myths disappears. McMurtry traces the rich and varied friendship of the heroic pair from the town of Long Grass to Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in Denver, then to Mobetie, Texas, and finally to Tombstone, Arizona, culminating with the famed gunfight at the O.K. Corral, rendered here in McMurtry's stark and peerless prose. As harsh and beautiful, and as brutal and captivating as the open range it depicts, The Last Kind Words Saloon celebrates the genius of one of the most original American writers.
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Jen2
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Pickpick

Good story. Some problematic things.

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DHill
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This is the first Larry McMurtry I‘ve read. Not my usual genre but here goes.

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jdiehr
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Mehso-so

Read this short book in honor of McMurtry's passing. I don't think it will stick with me for long.

Maybe if I had known more about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday I would have liked it better.

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Bookzombie
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#3 books that I hated.

The Last Kind Words Saloon - I still wonder if McMurtry needed a little money when he wrote this one.

The Couple Next Door - I just wanted my time back after I finished this one.

Not the Killing Type - I can‘t believe I read seven(!) books in this series. I finally realized the main character was awful.

OriginalCyn620 📚👎🏻📚 4y
Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks The ending of The Couple Next Door 😱😳 4y
Reggie Ditto on the Couple Next Door. It felt like it tried to be rescued from the Lifetime movie of the week discard pile. It was baaaaad. 4y
Bookzombie @Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks I forgot what happened, lol. I had to go find a spoiler. 4y
Bookzombie @Reggie It was! 4y
42 likes5 comments
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Biblionut
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Panpan

I hate to have to pan this but I just didn‘t see the point to it. It drops you in at a certain point in a narrative with no backstory and seemed to me to be plotless. If I did not have any kind of knowledge already about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday I would have bailed. 🙁

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shareyourghost
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McMurtry‘s “ballad in prose” follows Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday through the dying West from Long Grass to Tombstone as they sit on porches, talk shit, and drink. Sometimes they shoot at stuff. Mostly they miss.

6 likes1 stack add
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AmyStewart
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Ever pick up a book and absolutely love it and then you go look at what the critics had to say and find out that nobody really liked it but you? Seriously, this book is amazing. It‘s short and funny and weird and told almost entirely in absolutely spectacular dialogue. I didn‘t even know McMurtry got bad reviews, but this one really did not get a lot of love. I‘m mystified.

YouReadMyEyes Sounds cool, you talked me into giving it a try! I‘ve never read him. Lonesome Dove is on my TBR but it‘s SO massive that I just haven‘t wanted to go there yet. 7y
Leftcoastzen I have so much love for his early ones “Horseman pass By “ and 7y
See All 11 Comments
Beckys_Books Well, if no one else liked it, it's as if Larry wrote it for you! 7y
CityGinger @Beckys_Books that's a lovely thing to say 😍 7y
Leftcoastzen @AmyStewart Please tell me you have read his slim volume about loving books,being a book scout and having several stores over the years. 7y
BethFishReads I love everything he wrote 7y
tpixie I‘ll have to get it for my son-in-law who lives in Dodge City, KS. 7y
MichelleScott_author I‘ve only read Lonesome Dove by him, but it was an excellent book. 7y
TheBookgeekFrau Read this years ago, really enjoyed it. Glad to see it still around😊 7y
TheBookgeekFrau @Leftcoastzen Thank you for the new add on my wish list. Don‘t know how I missed that one 7y
90 likes13 stack adds11 comments
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Rachbb3
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My Barnes and Noble #bookhaul

Most are classics. I was very intentional by preparing for the #Litsyclassics challenge. 😁

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Great haul!!!! 📚📚 7y
Texreader Wonderful haul!! 7y
128 likes1 stack add2 comments
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Bookzombie
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#splashintosummerreads Day 10 I love McMurtry and Lonesome Dove is one of my favorites. I was excited to read a book with Earp and Holliday written by McMurtry, but this was so disappointing. It's too short and there was no plot. #biggestletdown

Bklover Good to know- will stay away from this one. I'm a Lonesome Dove fan too! 8y
Reviewsbylola Someday I will read Lonesome Dove. Hopefully with @Cinfhen 😃 8y
Cinfhen Haha 😂 shit, I better start watching my buddy request list more carefully...but I totally want to read this @Reviewsbylola 8y
Reviewsbylola 😂😂😂 I've been keeping a list. 😉 @Cinfhen 8y
54 likes4 comments
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Bookzombie
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#Marchintoreading Day 4 I feel like I'm a pretty big fan of McMurtry, but this book was so disappointing. The main characters are Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday so it should have been freaking great! #didntlikeitstillfinished

Halle770 Have you read Doc by Marie Doria Russell? It is amazing!! 8y
LeahBergen I heard it sucked, too - and I'm a huge McMurtry fan. I still picked up a copy at a thrift shop because ... Doc and Wyatt?! 8y
LeahBergen @Halle770 I really enjoyed Doc, too. I need to pick up 8y
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magictoyshop haven't had the chance to read McMurty but this is a lovely cover 💕💕 8y
Halle770 @Wife I hold you enjoy! 8y
Bookzombie @Halle770 I haven't but it's on my TBR along with Epitaph. 🙂 @LeahBergen Maybe you will like it. I just wanted more from it. It's also rather short. 8y
Bookzombie @magictoyshop I still have more of his to read but I loved Lonesome Dove and Streets of Laredo. I do love this cover though. 8y
57 likes8 comments
review
Joshsandaker
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Pickpick

Listed as a novel but it has the length and spirit of a novella. First of McMurtry I've read so I can't compare but I love the way the story demystifies Wyatt Warp and Doc Holliday and the Old West. Story ends with the gunfight at the OK Corral, which turns out to be not much more than a whimper.

1 like1 stack add
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Joshsandaker
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"his screams could be heard for a long time, along with those of a tall boy who had his genitals cooked over a small fire that Satank himself had carefully nursed along." Ah, the sweet Romanticism of the Old West.

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