Larry McMurtry recently published his first non-fiction book [In a Narrow Grave], a collection of essays on Texas customs, beliefs, and cities. It will be interesting to compare this book with his novels, all of which display a knowledge of and respect for the land. But McMurtry displays no sentimentality or nostalgia for the country, however descriptively he has written of it…. McMurtry has written about life in the country and in the dead or dying little towns from first hand experience. In doing so, he has chronicled what becomes a major theme in his fiction: the initiation into manhood and its inevitable corollaries—loneliness and loss of innocence.

Larry (Jeff) McMurtry 1936– © Jerry Bauer

McMurtry's first novel, Horseman, Pass By … examines the initiation theme that is developed further in his later novels. A general feeling of loneliness permeates this first book. (pp. 171-72)

Lonnie's loneliness, however, is different...