McMurtry May, Vol. 4

I hate a man that talks rude.

📝 Thanks for reading Fran Magazine, a blog by Fran Hoepfner (me). This is the May book club, which is optional. If you haven’t made time for Lonesome Dove, I’ll see you on Sunday (or sooner, depending). Your subscriptions are welcome and encouraged for regular updates sent to your inbox (email, Substack, or both). Feel free to follow me on Instagram or Letterboxd. 📝

Home stretch

On Sunday, I got back from a jaunt to Philadelphia (more on that later in the week) where I went to see friends and the orchestra. The weather was nice-ish, maybe a little windy, upon my return. I got back to the city around 4pm, and I’d scheduled a haircut for 6pm. Twice going to Philly and back I’ve been hit with big delays — hence the two hour window I gave myself upon return. Of course: man plans, God laughs, etc.: my train got in early. I had more than two hours to kill — the salon couldn’t see me any sooner. I walked from Penn Station down to the West Village where I waffled on a few different ideas: get nails done? get weird early dinner? go to “Little Island”? I landed on the easiest and most pleasant option, which was posting up at a bar I like¹ to get a snack and a cocktail and read. I sat and read Lonesome Dove for a little over an hour — catching all the way up to the reading for this week and pushing ahead. I’ve heard from several of you that you’ve finished around, doing the last 200 or so pages in one big sprint. Anyway, my little respite had me thinking about the act of reading this book — where you’ve done it, when you’ve done it, what kind of environment you require in order to read for so long.

Clara

I think of this chunk of the book as being “the Clara section” — obviously a ton of other stuff happens — because it’s one of the most dynamic parts of the novel so far. She’s a blast: funny, generous, gentle, brave. Would there be any reason to expect less from a woman who Gus McCrae is in love with?

I’ve written before about how I feel as though these characters are trapped in time. Part of why death comes easily and often (and brutally) is because they are a type of person going extinct in American history — to travel from where they were conveniently and easily safe in a town like Lonesome Dove where things do not change up to Montana is to confront time. The world is rapidly modernizing. The indigenous populations are putting up their last, desperate stand against the encroaching white man. Lonesome Dove is set after the Civil War: there is a patent out for the telephone as these guys go south to north.

I’m repeating myself here because Clara felt to me somewhat implausibly modern — I say that not as a critique of the book — the flip side of the same coin that is Gus, both of which feel a bit like McMurtry to me based on what little I’ve read of and about him. Unlike Gus, who is profoundly nostalgic, Clara is forced to live in an ever-marching present. The reality of her life is that she is the caretaker of two little girls, a stable full of horses, and her husband, Bob, who is suffering from a brain injury. We learn that Clara has lost not one, but three sons — and Bob will be soon to go as well. Her life — frankly — sucks, but she cannot afford the convenience of nostalgia like Gus does. She has to keep going forward, even if it means staying put outside of Ogallala.

Basically all of the characters descend on Clara’s at one point or another during this section: Elmira and Zwey, July Johnson, and then the main guys from Hat Creek crew — Gus, Call, and Newt. I wanted to be optimistic on her behalf, but things go badly for Elmira three times over. She nearly bleeds out having her baby she doesn’t want, then Dee Boot gets hanged, and then she’s killed out on the prairie with Zwey. Unless my eyes glazed over while reading and drinking a 4:30pm bloody mary, I’m nearly certain we learn of Elmira and Zwey’s deaths in conversation from other characters, with little to no inkling when we’re in their POV.

July, on the other hand, mopes around Clara’s farm, working alongside her stablehand Cholo and entertaining her two daughters. At first I found myself curious about July’s easygoing nature with kids, but then I remembered he’s 24 and basically a child himself. Like, it’s crazy to think that him and Newt are probably only seven years apart in age. I found myself annoyed at July for his insistence at pursuing Elmira and his subsequent irritation with Clara and then, once again, I remembered he’s 24.

By the time the Hat Creek trio arrives at Clara’s, we’re mostly having a good time. Lorena — worried about Clara — immediately takes to hanging out at home with a bunch of women and Elmira’s abandoned baby Martin (#BabyMartin). The early passages of this section feel reminiscent of when they first started out on the road and Lorena found herself liking life on the trail, back when things were more tolerable with Jake Spoon. Lorena is competent and eager to help — but she needs to seek it out for herself.

Jake & Deets

I found Jake Spoon’s death both haunting and pathetic — he would not stop yapping about whatever dumbass nonsense while his friends were forced to hang him for the crimes. The ease with which Gus and Call make the decision to hang him and the Suggs and the straightforward way McMurtry approaches that scene — there is a methodical precision to it all — was quite disturbing. It is not easy to be so certain in perceived justice, and though Gus, Call, Deets, and Newt do what they feel must be done, there is a strong undercurrent of regret and shame.

Relatedly: how many times has Newt cried on this journey?

Deets’s death — also very bad — comes after one of the most “no, no, no” moments in the book so far. McMurtry is quite good with scenes of surprise violence — did anyone actually see Sean O’Brien’s snake death coming?" — but the lead-up to Deets’s death is one of the most tense and bleak sequences. For chapters leading up to his demise, he grew increasingly forlorn and homesick. Few of these characters, even after the respite at Clara’s, seem to think what they’re doing is still a good idea, least of all Deets who longed for Texas. Deets is killed by a young brave after attempting to rescue a toddler when a few of them go after a group of starving Native Americans who stole some horses in the night. There’s a mounting nervous energy to the scene — these characters ought to know by now that things that don’t outwardly appear as a threat often are — and though Deets tries to broker peace, he’s stabbed anyway. Here’s where I felt genuine anger and annoyance with Gus and Call, who act too slow in the moment. They comment on the fact, Deets’s death getting to Call in particular, as they feel themselves detaching from what it is they’re good at. For a while I was convinced this was a “don’t get attached to anyone” type of book where anyone could die — now I am kind of convinced they’re all going to die.

This moment, however, is quite remarkable:

Mr. Gus’s head had grown larger, was floating off. It was rising toward the sky like the moon. He could barely see it and then couldn’t see it at all, but the waters parted for a moment and he saw a blade or two of grass, close to his eye; then to his relief the brown waters came back and covered him again, deep this time and warm.

Newt in town

There’s a brief episode in Ogallala where everyone goes to get drunk and laid. Someone else is going to have to get into the case of the “Buffalo heifer” — okay I’m laughing — but there are two things I wanted to note from this section.

First:

vermont country store

Quite beautifully and fittingly, none of the young guys can figure out how to get drunk and laid at first so mostly they go buy a bunch of candy with their earnings — specifically “horehound candy.” Now what in the hell is this, I wondered. I just knew in my heart that this was going to be some licorice-adjacent, nasty, old-timey candy and I was right.

Our horehound candy is made especially for those who love the unique taste and offers twice the amount of horehound flavor, so they taste more like the original drops you remember.

Awesome way for website copy to be written when the candy tastes good.

Per Rheo Thompson Candies:

Horehounds, whether you are popping one of these tasty hard candies as a sweet treat or enjoying it as a throat lozenge or digestion aid (yes, the Horehound Herb has wonderful medicinal properties), these classic confections are sure to delight. From the mint family, Horehound’s flavour is often described as being between root beer and licorice in taste… we just call it delicious!

I saw a lot of descriptions that said mint + licorice, as well as a lot of Reddit posts of people talking about how disgusting they are. If you’ve had horehound candy, you are legally obligated to sound off in the comments.

The other thing I wanted to draw attention to in this episode is the moment in which Call comes to Newt’s defense in town after the army guys roll back around and try to take Dish’s horse. We’ve been wondering: what does it take for Call to slip into action? What does that look like? Well — perhaps as anticipated, the violence that Call is capable of is brutal and relentless: he beats the captain within an inch of his life. Compared to the Loony Tunes-style violence of Gus in the saloon knocking the bartender out, this spat felt symbolic of all that Call holds in. We also learn that with certainty that Call is Newt’s father — maybe this is the most loving thing he’s ever done?

Blue Duck

Less of him than I thought there was going to be, given how prominent he was in the last section. Hmm… perhaps have to recant what I wrote last week… stay tuned.

Quick quote to close us out because I read all this before a haircut

Po Campo was unshakable. He kept plugging for the barbershop over the whorehouse.

Wait the bear

There’s a bear in Chapter 91 — how about that?

Anyway

Next week we wrap up Lonesome Dove! I’ll be sad to say goodbye to our pals but comforted knowing there’s a starry miniseries and other books in this series should I find myself missing them too much.

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Have you had the yucky candy? Is Newt crying too much or the right amount? Have you ever been to Montana?

1. Gatekeeping this, sorry. The West Village is already ruined enough!