CLAY REYNOLDS University of North Texas Tracks. Here McMurtry has taken a page from others such as Robert Altman and John Huston, Thomas Berger, Clifford Irving, and even Mark Twain by creating an entertaining novel based less on historical fact or established legend than on the richness of fictional character and fertile imagination of a first class novelist. There is also comedy here, but the wild absurdities of Texasville and self-indulgent hyperbole of Cadillac Jack are thankfully absent, as are the sprawling running jokes of Lonesome Dove.

There is realism here, violence as well, but it emerges with a casualness that befits such happenings as they occurred in history murder and mayhem aren’t sensational until writers make them so. In sum, by deliberately ignoring facts and figures, McMurtry shows that the most important thing about any story, Western or otherwise, is the story itself. This book takes on many of the preconceptions about the Western novel and exposes them for the manu factured shams they are. But there is an important difference: Anything for Billy shows a serious maturity, a greater confidence of position, and a deeper relationship of themes and ideas than any previous work and those who have followed his career from Horseman, Pass By through this newest work will be excited to see a fulfillment of potential that has long been called for. In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ħ6 Western American Literature and ideas which have long been important to his fiction, and virtual signatures for his style.

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