Helpful Score: 4
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.
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.
