Leaving Cheyenne - Larry McMurtry

⭐ 8/10

Lonesome Dove is now on my Mount Rushmore, so of course I had to read another McMurtry. Why not the next one that is in the collection already own? Like Dove this book thrusts you into the old West in a way that feels genuine. Reading these I often think about my love of fantasy, and the thing I love there is a distinct world that feels real and lived in. McMurtry's dialog does exactly that, and I love how it takes me a couple pages to sink into the style before I am completely swimming in it. The dialog is sharp, the setting is vivid, and the life of the characters is completely alien. He is able to romanticize a way of life I would never survive in.

This book follows what is essentially a love triangle. Two men in love with a woman, and she is in love with them both, and they kind of share here their whole lives. The book is split into three parts. We witness their young adulthood from Gideon's eyes, a realist who is a hard worker but can't ever commit to his feelings for Molly. We see Molly during their parenting years, and I won't even begin to try to describe her motivations because I don't understand her at all. And then Johnny for the sunset years of their lives, someone who is fun loving and spontaneous, a friend of Gid's but his complete opposite.

I think because the setting is so different from my own life I am able to give a lot of grace and understanding to the incomprehensible decisions of these characters. Life is completely different, so maybe a woman stringing along these two mens for their entire lives is just a quirk of a time when lives were shorter and decisions are made quicker. We learn about events that clearly inform their world views, but I never fully grasped why they were all okay living for brief moments of happiness when Molly would turn her loving gaze in their direction. I liked seeing years pass as technology enters and changes their day-to-day, but their characteristics remain consistent through it all.

There was a bracing scene of Molly being chastised by one of her children because of her way of life, and that kind of smacked me in my judgmental face. I do think I was initially approaching these characters where I was trying to understand them, but then drifted into criticism of their choices. Seeing one of her children verbalize what had been stewing in my mind felt like a great retort of my criticism, and it felt like the author reframing my perspective once again, allowing me to quiet the judgement and take in the characters for who they are. I'm not describing it well, but it felt kind of profound, a moment in reading where I was disciplined and came out better for it. Not sure I have felt that way before reading a book.

Nothing really happens in this book outside of their relationships, so if you want plot you will not find it here. Its a short enough book with a compelling setting, and I basically burned through it in 3 days. Won't go down as one of my favourites, but I know I will never forget Gid, Johnny and Molly.