Rick Bragg at the LA Times:
McMurtry, who died last week, was described in one obit as among the most acclaimed writers of the American experience. A long time ago, he wrote a few kind words to me about a book I wrote, so, of course, I was predisposed to love his work; writers are whores that way.
But he could have called me a low-down, sorry S.O.B and I still would have read pretty much everything he wrote. If the point of a good book is to vanish into it, then he was one of the best there ever was. And I always knew, in a world of wasted time, that I hadn’t wasted a second.
Few writers I have ever read breathed such life into words. He showed us the wisdom of Sam the Lion in “The Last Picture Show” and the rage of Woodrow Call and the broken, wandering heart of Augustus McCrae in “Lonesome Dove.”
more here.