Includes bibliographical references.

Acknowledgments / George Getschow -- Foreword / Stephen Graham Jones -- Introduction / George Getschow -- Native ground. In awesome wonder / Charlie McMurtry -- The boy with the lamp / Paulette Jiles -- The Larry McMurtry I knew / Skip Hollandsworth -- The master geologist of Archer County / Erik Calonius -- Larry's oil patch legacy / Joe W. Specht -- Teacher and apprentices. Leave his saddle on the wall / William Broyles -- McMurtry's mild discouragement / Gregory Curtis -- "Mike, it's Larry. I'm in trouble." / Mike Evans -- Myth buster and myth maker. Ranging across Texas / Geoff Dyer -- Gus, call Danny and the Rangers / Doug J. Swanson -- The mishap / Oscar Cásares -- Finding home / Sarah Bird -- Reader and bookman. Larry McMurtry, reader / Bill Marvel -- An afternoon with Larry / Greg Giddings -- On book scouting and ghostwritten erotica / Brandon Kennedy -- Runaways / Stephanie Elizondo Griest -- Bonding over books / Kathryn Jones -- Collaborators and confidants. The Moby-Dick of the Plains / Michael Korda -- Stirring the memories / Diana Ossana -- My long trail to Lonesome Dove / Carol Flake Chapman -- An unlikely bond / Susan Freudenheim -- Not so silent women / Sherry Kafka Wagner -- Scenes from a friendship / Beverly Lowry -- Road trip tips from Larry McMurtry / Katy Vine -- Critic and champion. To hell with the sunny slopes / John Nova Lomax -- Writer, pass by / Jim Black -- Loving Gus / Elizabeth Crook -- Workshopper. Somewhere a writer / Kathy Floyd -- McMurtry's rebuff / Eric Nishimoto -- At the intersection of aspiration and asphyxiation / Dianne Solis -- Reckoning at Idiot Ridge / Cathy Booth Thomas -- Furthur / Dave Tarrant -- Legacy. Writing plainly and unforgettably / Stephen Harrigan -- The Borderlands : a home for misfits like me and McMurtry's Danny Deck / Alfredo Corchado -- All my friends are going to be Larry / W. K. Stratton -- McMurtry passing by / Lawrence Wright.

"Larry McMurtry is the author of dozens of novels (Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show), screenplays (Brokeback Mountain, Terms of Endearment), and essays ("Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen"), among other writings. He won the Pulitzer Prize, Oscars, and Emmys, among other honors. When he died in March 2021, he was possibly Texas's best-known and best-loved writer, an honor he famously dismissed with a t-shirt that read "minor regional novelist." George Getschow worked with McMurtry through the Archer City Writer's Workshop, an annual three-day event in McMurtry's hometown that pairs emerging and established writers. He's leveraged that network to build this collection of essays paying homage to McMurtry, only a handful of which have been previously published. The pieces in the volume pay tribute to McMurtry in a variety of ways. Stephen Graham Jones captures the thrill of seeing the legendary author prowling the stacks in his used-book store, wondering if his own books might one day be on those same shelves. Sarah Bird talks about McMurtry's "messy but mythic west" that made Texas appealing to her. Elizabeth Crook talks about how difficult it is to let go of McMurtry's characters, particularly those from Lonesome Dove, a book Geoff Dyer also found himself surprisingly unable to ignore despite everything he knew about it (it's long, slow to develop, etc.). Greg Curtis recalls McMurtry as a fellow student at Rice, and Charlie McMurtry, Larry's brother, writes about growing up with him in excerpts from his dissertation. Stephanie Elizondo Griest is enamored and perplexed by a shelf of books in McMurtry's private collection that he called his "runaways," travel accounts by 19th-century women. Diana Ossana, McMurtry's longtime screenwriting partner and one of his dearest friends, writes movingly about their friendship and many collaborations. Getschow has written an introduction that sketches the contours of McMurtry's life"-- Provided by publisher.