Streets of Laredo - Larry McMurtry

⭐9/10

This is the follow-up to Lonesome Dove which I would say is firmly on my all-time list now. I know this book is not considered on the level of that one, and I think with that expectation, this one is super enjoyable. It's not quite the behemoth that Lonesome Dove is, but it's certainly a chunker and yet I felt I was able to read through it pretty steadily. This again is a slow-burn, but whenever I'm reading I'm fully absorbed and not looking for anything else to read. It's fully immersive, detailed, and while the prose often seem plain, the book can strike you with some beautiful writing. 

This one takes place 20 or so years after Lonesome where we catch up with our characters, and after the events of the first book, many are looking for meaning or ways to continue on. The main plot of this book is that they are looking to track down a bandit essentially for bounty money, so I guess in retrospect it's kinda more your classic western, though it certainly didn't strike me as that at the time. 

This is far less a stylised Western and more a western simulation. I think McMurtry's greatest strength is creating a hyper-realistic world and letting it all play out regardless of book norms or the feelings of the readers. It can be frustrating at times when you want the characters to do things that characters usually do in other books, but the payoffs are enormous in the long-run. It's the thing where when the character is in danger, you actually fear for them, because if a women or sweet child can die in real life, they can die in this book. But it goes beyond that - the sense of immersion just helps you understand the characters in their context. 

Characterization is also something that McMurtry does incredibly. He has an amazing ability to put himself into the mind of say, an uneducated cowboy in the South, and have that character make decisions or process events like you could expect. This isn't placing modern people in an old world, but everyone is so influenced by their context that they are thinking completely different thoughts than us, and yet it all sounds just how it should. Every character is complex and interesting with flaws and qualities and layers. All of this sounds like cliche, basic stuff, but he does it better than almost anyone I know. 

I guess that brings me to my main criticism, though, and that's that I don't love the characterization of the villains. In a world so steeped in realism, his villains seem quite cartoonish. It's a shame because I always love a clash between characters I grow to love, and this has all the makings for that with the omniscient POV and switching perspectives. But any time it's the villains' POV, I just felt like McMurtry didn't have a great plan for how he wanted them portrayed. I also think he takes too many liberties in trying to enter the minds of Natives or Mexicans, and they all seem a little too dreamy or caricaturized. The writing in those POVs honestly just seems a little poorer, almost lazier. 

But most of the time is spent on the main characters, and when it's with them, this is a perfect book. I loved it. I love these as summer reads and look forward to the next two summers to finish these off. Great series, and they certainly have a special place in my heart by now.