I remember watching Lonesome Dove with my grandparents as a child, although I remember absolutely nothing about the plot (I was probably not actually watching, but reading something while it was on in the background). What I remember most is how much my grandparents liked it. A couple years ago I decided maybe I’d try to read the book. I stopped and started at least 3 times, struggling to have any interest in the lives of a couple retired Texas Rangers. It wasn’t until this year, when I decided I would read a chapter a night until I finished it, that I managed to get through this.
That probably sounds like a negative review, but it isn’t. My review basically boils down to: this is a book. I read it. But I don’t really know how to review it.
The basic plot is this: Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae are former Texas Rangers who now run a horse farm in Texas. They are each coping with retirement in their own way. Gus seems to be enjoying it, spending time with the town prostitute, drinking, and gabbing with anyone he meets. Call, on the other hand, doesn’t like being retired because he has too much time to think. He’d much rather be busy than spend any time thinking about Maggie, the woman he was in love with who died, or Maggie’s son Newt, who lives on the farm with him and Gus (it is pretty clearly telegraphed from early on in the book that Newt is Call’s son, although Call has never claimed him. Call also would never admit he was in love with Maggie because NEEDING ANOTHER HUMAN IS WEAKNESS). Then, an old acquaintance rides into town and starts talking about how beautiful the Milk River in Montana is, and how anyone who drives cattle up there can start a ranch and make a lot of money. Traveling from Texas to Montana in the 1870s was, of course, an enormously dangerous endeavor. Gus has no interest in a cattle drive and is happy to live out his life in Lonesome Dove. But, Call, on the other hand–as possibly the most emotionally stunted man in the entire country–is ready to risk the lives of all of his employees as well as his best friend rather than face the actual facts of his life. He talks Gus into it, and the rest of the book focuses on the cattle drive and fallout, although considering that this book is like 900 pages, there’s a lot more to the story than that.
A lot of people love Lonesome Dove, and with good reason. This book is so well-written. In spite of my utter lack of interest in Westerns or cowboys, I found myself identifying with these characters and becoming invested in their lives. The characters feel so real. But this book is also unbelievably bleak. There was more than one chapter that horrified me, and one that made it hard for me to fall asleep the night I read it. Almost every character I really liked met a sad and brutal end. I hate Woodrow Call so much that I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t really know how to review this book because I know that objectively, it’s excellent. But I did not enjoy this reading experience and I’ll certainly never read this again.