'It's what nourishes the imagination'

 

“You expect far too much of a first sentence. Think of it as analogous to a good country breakfast: what we want is something simple, but nourishing to the imagination.” –  Larry McMurtry

 

Born in Wichita Falls, TX on June 3, 1936 McMurtry was considered the consummate writer of “the perfect first sentence,” and readers rewarded him for it with multiple bestselling novels.  Viewers were equally appreciative, flocking to movie adaptations of many of his works. 

 

Among his dozens of bestsellers are such classics as The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove.  His movies earned a remarkable 26 Academy Award nominations with 10 wins, and the Lonesome Dove television series, earned 18 Emmy nominations with seven wins, plus a Pulitzer Prize for Literature.  And he co-wrote (with Diana Ossana) the Academy Award-winning screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.

 

A rancher’s son, McMurtry got his first taste of storytelling as a boy sitting on his parents’ porch listening to stories from them and their ranch hands.   After studying creative writing at North Texas State, he did graduate work at Rice and Stanford, where he also became a rare-book scout.  Ultimately, in addition to his writing, he became one of America’s most prominent antiquarian booksellers, amassing nearly half-a-million books.  The Larry McMurtry Literary Center, established in Archer City, TX after his death in 2021, maintains an estimated 300,000 volumes from his collection. 

 

“A bookman’s love of books,” McMurtry said, “is a love of books, not merely of the information in them.”