Comanche Moon: A Novel: novel

✍ Scribed by Larry McMurtry

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2000;1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 396 KB
• Category: Fiction

✦ Synopsis

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER

The second book of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetralogy, Comache Moon takes us once again into the world of the American West.

Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow Call, now in their middle years, continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life -- Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him. Two proud but very different men, they enlist with the Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture. Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes.

Comanche Moon closes the twenty-year gap between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove, following beloved heroes Gus and Call and their comrades in arms -- Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker -- in their bitter struggle to protect the advancing West frontier against the defiant Comanches, courageously determined to defend their territory and their way of life.

Amazon.com Review

In a book that serves as a both a sequel to Dead Man's Walk and a prequel to the beloved Lonesome Dove , McMurtry fills in the missing chapters in the Call and McCrae saga. It is a fantastic read, in many ways the best and gutsiest of the series. We join the Texas Rangers in their waning Indian-fighting years. The Comanches, after one last desperate raid led by the fearsome-but-aging Buffalo Hump, are almost defeated, though Buffalo Hump's son, Blue Duck, still terrorizes the relentless flow of settlers and lawmen. As Augustus and Woodrow follow one-eyed, tobacco-spitting Captain Inish Scull deep into a murderous madman's den in Mexico, their thoughts turn toward the end of their careers and the women they love in remarkably different ways back in Austin. What's amazing about McMurtry's West is that he sees beyond the romance. Neither his Indians, his cowboys, his gunslingers, nor his women act the way they did in either Zane Grey novels or John Wayne movies. Incredible beauty and lightning-quick violence are the bookends of his West, but it is the in-between moments of suffering and boredom where McMurtry shines. The suffering is poignant and heart-rending; the boredom tempered with doses of Augustus McCrae's sharp humor. Don't be surprised if you find yourself crying and laughing on the same page.

From Library Journal

This prequel to the classic Lonesome Dove (LJ 7/85) follows Woodrow Call and Augustus McCrae through their years as Texas Rangers as they create legends for themselves fighting the Comanche to open west Texas for settlement. For 15 years, the Rangers play cat-and-mouse games with Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf, and other chiefs as they pursue, attack, and retaliate their way through the Comanche wars. Ironically, Blue Duck, Gus McCrae's nemesis in Lonesome Dove, is Buffalo Hump's son, carrying on the tradition started by his father, even though father and son hated one another. Considered together, Dead Man's Walk (LJ 4/15/95), Comanche Moon, and Lonesome Dove create a monumental work that has few equals in current literature. Essential for all libraries.
-?Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.