SOURCE: "Boundaries, Borders and Frontiers: A Revisionary Reading of Larry McMurtry's Horseman, Pass By," in Journal of Popular Culture, Vol. 28, No. 1, Summer, 1994, pp. 97-110.

In the following essay Sarll, a member of the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Nottinham, discusses the way McMurtry juxtaposes conflicting ideas in Horseman, Pass By.

It is time for a reappraisal of Larry McMurtry's fiction, a reappraisal which recognizes the complexity of his work, acknowledges the serious cultural and literary issues he addresses, and is not tied exclusively to a 'Western' or 'regional' critique.¹ One approach which can encompass these issues is through the boundaries deeply embedded in his novels. Danny Deck, novelist protagonist of All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers (1972), and perhaps the closest to a fictional self-projection in McMurtry's work, comments that the boundary, or borderline, is his peculiarly appropriate vantage point.

It was...