In many ways this is a terrible, cheesy book. A young woman moves to the Old West during its brief heyday and meets or falls in love with every famous person you ever heard of. She is smart and organized and horny as only a male author can write of a woman. She is a sort of Forrest Gump, appearing at famous places, dealing with famous people. None of it is the least bit believable.
Except. Except this is Larry McMurtry we're talking about. Even with a corny heroine and a hackneyed excuse of a plot, nobody knows the reality of the West like McMurtry. Every detail of the life at the time, and every incidental character, is completely true. And McMurtry has the voice to carry you along right through it so that you don't even mind, really, when the heroine witnesses the shootout at the OK Corral shortly after leaving the employ of Bufalo Bill Cody.
By the time the book was over I was pretty disgusted with the cheap plot, and yet I wanted to stay in the world a little bit longer. I wasn't quite ready for it to be over.
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