This is the first major single-authored book in almost twenty years to examine the life and work of Texas' foremost novelist and to develop coherent patterns of theme, structure, symbol, imagery, and influence in Larry McMurtry's work.
The study focuses on the novelist's relationship to the Southwest, theorizing that his writing exhibits a deep ambivalence toward his home territory. The course of his career demonstrates shifting attitudes that have led him toward, away from, and then back again to his home place and the "cowboy god" that dominates its mythology.
The book...

"Is literary Texas a banana republic or an empire?" Tom Pilkington has written a series of lively and delightfully learned essays addressing this question.
Pilkington traces the evolution of Texas literature from its roots (including Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca, the state's literary "prototype," and J. Frank Dobie, who "taught Texans how to succeed at the culture game") to its twentieth-century flowering (writers like John Graves, Rolando Hinojosa, Cormac McCarthy, and Larry McMurtry). He explores questions as diverse as who is a Texan, what makes a "Texas" writer, what distinguishes the...