Oak Hill Public Library

Comanche Moon

by Larry McMurtry

Library Journal If you've ever wondered what happened between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove, here's your chance to find out. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/97; a Comanche Moon mini-series is in the works.]?Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Book list At the conclusion of McMurtry's epic masterpiece, Lonesome Dove, Ranger Woodrow Call is haunted by the human cost of his determination to drive cattle to Montana. "A hell of a vision," he sarcastically comments to a reporter. For McMurtry, the experience of the Hat Creek Cattle Company served as a metaphor for much of the frontier experience; it was heroic, ennobling of spirit, but, in the end, heartbreaking. Comanche Moon is the fourth of the Ranger series and the second prequel to Lonesome Dove. Here, as Texas anticipates the outbreak of the Civil War, Gus McRae and Woodrow Call are relatively young men. Their rangering activities are primarily directed at subduing the declining but still deadly Comanches. In this panorama of antebellum Texas, McMurtry reintroduces familiar characters, some fiction, some historical, some endearing, and some terrifying, including Deets, the black scout; Clara, the longtime love of Gus McRae; Buffalo Hump, the fierce, primitive Comanche warrior; and Buffalo Hump's sociopathic son, Blue Duck. McMurtry's depiction of the West is far removed from the dime-novel portrayal of constant excitement and adventure. Instead, white settlers, rangers, and Comanches endure long periods of grinding tedium, punctuated by spasms of deadly violence, which often arrive with seemingly silent inevitability. As usual, McMurtry's narrative unfolds slowly, as the reader is gradually introduced to time, place, and people; yet the plot is consistently engrossing, and McMurtry's revisionist vision of frontier life is always compelling. --Jay Freeman

From Booklist, Copyright � American Library Association. Used with permission.

Kirkus McMurtry returns to reliable form in this follow-up to Dead Man's Walk (1995) that serves as a second prequel to his Texas epic Lonesome Dove (1985). As the great Comanche warrior Buffalo Hump slowly succumbs to weakness and old age, a younger generation both of Texans and Comanches rises to power. Buffalo Hump's son, Blue Duck, breaks away from his father to form a band of renegades who prefer the Texans' guns to the bow and arrow and their own whims to traditional ways. Events are set in motion by the theft of a great warhorse belonging to Harvard-educated adventurer and Texas ranger, Captain Inish Scull. The thief, a Comanche, resolves to undertake a mad display of heroism by presenting the animal to the Mexican warlord Ahumado (the ``Black Vaquero'') renowned for the creative methods of torture he visits on anyone foolish enough to cross him. Captain Scull, unhinged by the incident, sets off in pursuit and falls into Ahumado's hands. A brutal Comanche raid on Austin at the same time spurs the rise of two tough, bright, experienced young rangers: affable, whiskey- and whore-obsessed Augustus McCrae, who's nevertheless steadfast in his devotion to Clara Forsythe, an independent-minded shopkeeper who breaks his heart by marrying a more stable man; and dour, sensible, lethal Woodrow Call, who can't quite bring himself to acknowledge his illegitimate son or marry the sweet-natured prostitute with whom he has a longstanding relationship. The two battle-hardened friends sort out their troubles with women, tangle with the Comanches and Ahumado, and quietly become (reluctant) legends on the frontier. While the last third turns workmanlike in its efforts to set up the opening situation of Lonesome Dove, McMurtry nevertheless delivers a generally fine tableau of western life, full of imaginative exploits, convincing historical background, and characters who are alive. (Book-of-the-Month Club main selection/Literary Guild alternate selection/Quality Paperback Book Club selection)

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