Texas Standard

David Streitfeld wrote the new biography “Western Star” about his friend Larry McMurty. In this extended interview, you’ll hear more about “Lonesome Dove,” McMurtry’s reaction to the television miniseries and whether McMurtry himself was more of an Augustus McCrae or a Woodrow Call. Streitfeld also talked about what he hopes readers will get out of his new book.

The full transcript of this episode of Texas Standard is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Laura Rice: Hello again. It’s Laura Rice with a Texas Extra. This time we’re revisiting my interview with the author of a new biography about Larry McMurtry. David Streitfeld, the writer of Western Star, got to do something. I unfortunately never did. Interview McMurtry, but much more than that. The two became friends.

So Streitfeld and I had a lot more to talk about than fit into our allotted time for Texas Standards Radio broadcast. We talked extensively about Lonesome Dove, and in this longer cut, you’ll hear a little more about McMurtry’s reaction to the television mini series, and whether McMurtry himself was more of an Augustus McCrae or a Woodrow Call.

We also talked more about what Streitfeld hopes readers would get out of this new book. You’ll also learn just a little bit about me in this extended interview and why I named one of my kids after a McMurtry character. Hope you enjoy. You’ve got it tuned to the Texas Standard.

I’m Laura Rice. When Texas Standard put together its list for our movie Madness Bracket to determine the best Texas film, we had a few rules. It had to be filmed at least in part in Texas and set. Here we put a limit of. Two on how many movies from each director could be on the list. But we didn’t limit writers, which is how three stories originally written by Larry McMurtry made the list.

Hud, the last picture Show and terms of endearment. Lonesome Dove would surely have made the list to, but we limited ourselves to theatrical films. McMurtry captured something so special about Texas in some very. Different stories. David Streitfeld explores McMurtry’s writing his personal odyssey and his legacy in a new book, Western Star.

David, welcome to the Texas Standard.

David Streitfeld: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Laura Rice: Well, I told you I was gonna ask about, you know, why another Larry McMurtry book? ’cause Larry of course wrote so much about. Himself. He wrote so much, but you had a, a, a distinct relationship with him and a, and a perspective on him.

David Streitfeld: Yeah. I was destined, I think, to write this book, which might be my excuse for having it taken 20, 30 years.

I met Larry in the 1990s when I was a journalist in Washington, DC. He was a part-time bookseller in Washington DC when he wasn’t in Texas and I wanted to write about him. He resisted, but I went to his store in Texas. Um, then had about 400,000 books picked through them. Wrote an article about it. He responded to that, and out of that we became friends.

Laura Rice: Well, we talked about how this interview could go so many different ways. We could talk about Texas and his personal odyssey, or we could just talk about lonesome Dove, which is sort of where we settled because, you know, if there’s, if there’s one piece of work that I think he’s, he’s, he’s still most known for, it would be.

That one. You think that’s true?

David Streitfeld: I think that’s true, and somehow for a variety of reasons. Lonesome Dove has in the past couple of years, especially the last year, started selling at an incredible rate. It sells about a hundred thousand copies a year, which is just. Enormous. So I figure only time will tell if Lonesome Dove is a great American novel, but it’s certainly the great Texas novel and it seems like a lot of people in Texas and outside of Texas wanna read about Texas.

Laura Rice: What do you attribute to the fact that it’s gained this renewed attention of, of course we lost Larry not too long ago, that that could be part of it. People saying, what did I miss?

David Streitfeld: I, I think that’s part of it. I think, I think there’s a couple of reasons. The novel it, it’s about if you’re one of the few who hasn’t read it or seen it or had any experience with the miniseries, it’s about a cattle drive in the late 19th century from the Rio to the up to Montana, and it evokes Texas history.

It says something about the present as well. It seems it. It talks about things that people at the moment have questions about that they feel aren’t being answered in their lives, like male friendship. I mean, you see that discussed all the time in newspapers, but it’s rare to see that much of it in a novel, and I think.

That’s one element at least that people respond to. Another would be the book is about dreams, about the dreams that you have that everyone has, and how you can end up middle aged or older and realize your dreams haven’t quite come true. And maybe you fought on the wrong side all your life.

Laura Rice: Well, and that last point, I was gonna say, the intersection with Texas history, because Texas history is not.

Uncomplicated and the Texas Rangers particularly are not, uh, are not uncomplicated, and that’s what these two protagonists are. And, and he. Didn’t shy away from that, especially if you, if you go into, to prequels and, and, and that sort of thing for lonesome Dove,

David Streitfeld: right. Larry felt that the history of Texas and really the whole settling of the West was a very dark story full of, full of murder, full of cultures trying to kill each other.

He also was proud of his ancestors, his relatives who had settled Texas and he thought they were upstanding figures that had much to, um, be admired. And so he was always wrestling with those two things. He liked the people. But didn’t like the history and he was unsettled by the history, and he always felt that Lonesome Dove was a story about the darkness, but somehow people responded differently when they read it and they found in it a story that they thought was almost inspirational.

Laura Rice: Hmm. I mean, it, it makes me think too of, uh, of the, of the film series. Uh, I would encourage those who, who haven’t read that, the book to go back and, uh, and, and dig into that. ’cause it, of course, you know, I always say reading the book is, is a much richer experience. Right. But the, um, the film series, I understand he, he wasn’t a fan of even at the time.

Um, is, is that true?

David Streitfeld: He maintains that he never actually saw lonesome dove the miniseries all the way through. And that may well be true. Uh, the miniseries has many, many devoted admirers and certainly the acting is great. Personally, I find it reminds me a bit too much of. The excesses of the 1980s, and it doesn’t really seem to have that classic look that suggests it will be watched 20 years from now.

But I could be wrong.

Laura Rice: Hmm. If I have to pick a. Number two for me, it’s the last picture show. And that it seems like that was Larry writing about his own small town experience. Um, but then what’s interesting about that series is the, the protagonist, Sonny, is, is not the protagonist is as far as the whole series moves forward.

It’s this other character, Dwayne. Right? I mean, could you talk a little about that?

David Streitfeld: Right. The last picture show is with Lonesome Dove. Larry’s other key book and they’re really related. The lonesome dove is about the settling of the west and the great dreams and heroic exploits and uh, murderous times.

And the last picture show takes place a generation or two later when the west has been settled and people are. Bored out of their minds and would like to escape. Texas would like to escape these small towns and find they can’t. So it’s about kind of the diminishing of dreams over time. And then as Larry Wood, he loved to follow characters through novel after novel.

And Dwayne is a sympathetic figure, but also to a large extent, a tragic one. He doesn’t know what to do with his life and how to make his life better, how to live heroiCally, however that may be.

Laura Rice: One of your questions when we were setting this story up is, you know, Larry’s personal odyssey. How would you summarize that?

I mean, what was that? Journey like for him in, uh, in his career and, and, and how he saw what he wanted to accomplish.

David Streitfeld: Larry proceeded by instinct. He didn’t have a career plan. He didn’t have a plan for any of the books he wrote. He sat down and started typing and let the story go wherever it was so in that he’s not.

Really a typical artist where he is like the great artist is his ambivalence about his subject. He loved Texas and he hated it. He would miss Texas incredibly, the the big open skies, the the freedom that he felt there when he was somewhere else. But then he would get to Texas and he’d be like. I can’t stand it here.

There’s nothing to eat. He was particularly concerned about the bad food, and then he would feel that he’d have to leave and he would leave, and he was impressed by the people. And yet he also found the people as he portrayed them in last picture show narrow-minded and stuck in their own concerns and not, uh, reaching for a more impressive existence.

So he was ambivalent and the ambivalence came out on the page and I think anybody who lives in Texas and is ambivalent themselves about the state will find in Larry and Echo that they’ll appreciate.

Laura Rice: Well, Larry, I understand spent more and more time outside of Texas as he grew older. He, he died in Tucson, Arizona.

Did he still identify very strongly as a Texan?

David Streitfeld: He identified so strongly as a Texan that he told his writing partner Diana Osana, to tell the newspapers when he died, that he had died in Texas, even though he had really died in Tucson, Arizona. So he wanted to be portrayed. In the media, in the popular imagination as so Texan that he had died there.

Laura Rice: I’m thinking now about Gus’s last wish to, to drag his sign back to, to lonesome dove right. To to be buried there. Is there do, do you see some similarity in that?

David Streitfeld: Exactly. It was a very unusual case of the novel anticipating predicting the reality that came about. Whatever. 40 years later,

Laura Rice: David Refield explores McMurtry’s writing his personal odyssey and his legacy in the book Western Star, which is out now.

David, thank you so much.

David Streitfeld: Thank you for having me.

Laura Rice: Well, we could keep going if we wanted to. I sort of felt like that was a, that was a beautiful way to end it, but then,

David Streitfeld: right.

Laura Rice: But then

David Streitfeld: it’s up to you. I can certainly answer more questions, but, uh, I leave it to you, you know, like every author, I can talk about my book for the next six hours, but, uh, I’m not sure the world needs to hear five hours and 45 minutes of it.

Laura Rice: Oh, let me ask you this. I guess, what do, what do you hope that. Western Star adds to our understanding of Larry McMurtry.

David Streitfeld: You. You know, I mean that’s what something I, I could talk about. I mean, Larry believed very firmly in books, the physical container that is the books. He started a bookstore on the edge of the Texas plains and put 500,000 books in it and expected people to come and buy them, which in retrospect is a Daffy idea when, uh, this thing Called the internet is blossoming everywhere.

Mm-hmm. Um, but he was a, a man of the book and abided by them and celebrated them. Felt that that was his legacy, not the movies, that it was the books. And I would hope that my book adds a little understanding and a little entertainment, a little enjoyment. It’s a fun story of meeting precedents and. You know, being on, on top of Hollywood and in general having a good time.

And I tried to convey some of Larry’s exuberance in telling the story. So I hope people understand Larry by reading my book, and I hope they enjoy reading the book just as a book.

Laura Rice: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, thank you so much. I’m so excited to, my kids aren’t big enough for, for all these stories yet, but it’s, it’s gonna be fun to, to read them to them.

Um, my little guy’s middle name is Augustus for, uh,

oh

David Streitfeld: my

Laura Rice: God. Yes. Is

David Streitfeld: that because of

Laura Rice: this? Yes. It, it is, it’s because of Lonesome Do, which I real, which I recognize.

David Streitfeld: Wow. You should have said that. That was your intro. Boy, you know. You know, Larry, even in his more trying times, like the end of his life when he was sick, kept his sense of humor.

And Gus has a strongly developed sense of humor, an amused way of looking at the world. And Gus probably gets less done than his buddy Call. But I’d, I’d rather be Gus than Captain Call, and I’d rather my child be Gus than Captain Call. Mm-hmm. And I’d rather have a party with, uh, all the Gus’s than Captain Call.

Laura Rice: Absolute.

David Streitfeld: So, uh, um, I think you did well and, uh. Choosing the name Gus. Yeah.

Laura Rice: So you think, you think he was more of an an Augustus or more of a Of a Call?

David Streitfeld: He was always torn as usual. Larry’s life is about ambivalence, but unfortunately he thought he was much more of a Call. Mm. A captain Call then an Augustus, meaning he, I think he even said at one point that he was about.

80% captain Call and 20% generously Augustus. So Larry was always getting up at 5:00 AM and setting the work, and he would leave the party, whatever party it was that he was invited to early or he wouldn’t go to the party at all so he could get up the next morning and go back to work. He regretted that a little bit.

Um, he, he never really changed from that, but it’s probably impossible to change your, your personality that much to go from the hard worker to the life of the party. I think Larry wished that he. Enjoyed things a bit more.

Laura Rice: You know, I relate to that though. I think I, I am, I’m probably a Call to, but I think it says something about Larry that he could write Gus so fully.

I think there must have been a lot more Gus than him than, than he always let out. Well,

David Streitfeld: maybe he just couldn’t let it out, or was afraid to. Mm-hmm. Because really if, if you look back through his books, they all, um. Have this kind of split. I mean, leaving Cheyenne, which is an early novel that people love, is about two men, both of whom are in love with the same woman.

And it’s the same dynamic. One is the hard worker, the other is the party guy. And the hard worker wishes he were a little looser and, uh, more, more of a fun guy and a party guy is really happy just being the way he is. So it was something he battled against forever because he was the son of a Texas rancher and his father got up every day at four at the latest every morning.

And he made Larry get up that early too. And once you start getting up that early and setting the work as a child, you do it for the rest of your life.

Laura Rice: Yeah, this is all going in the extras. Uh, this has been really delightful, David. Thank you so much for your time.

David Streitfeld: All right. Well it’s, I’ve given you hard work here to put this all together, but uh, hopefully it’ll be great.

Laura Rice: I think it will be. Thank you.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.