McMurtry at his witty, breezy best...

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	• Telegraph Days: A Novel Larry McMurtry Pocket Star, 2007 - 416 pages average customer review:based on 61 reviews view larger image
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McMurtry at his witty, breezy best...

Certainly not to be confused with LONESOME DOVE which is in my Top 10 books of all-time but a breezy, rapid romp through the old West. The legends are all here Buffalo Bill Cody, Billy the Kids, Doc Holliday, The Earps and the OK Corral, Custer and a host of others. Nellie is quite a leading lady and storyteller. This book does not have the depth or emotion of LONESOME DOVE and seems rather abbreviated but it is a good story only as Larry McMurtry can write a good western.

Living the passing of the Old West

"Obviously (Teddy) had kissing in mind, and possibly matrimony as well ... My Sundays were mainly dull. I suppose I could have stayed at home and hung curtains. But fighting off Teddy might be more interesting ... I didn't want much from Teddy, but I did want something - if not from him, then from somebody, or maybe just from life itself." - Nellie Courtright, in TELEGRAPH DAYS

Larry McMurtry is arguably an iconic writer of Old West themes. In his magnificent Lonesome Dove: A Novel (Simon & Schuster Classics), the storyline was both character and event driven. In TELEGRAPH DAYS, the former is more the case and events serve almost as props. The chief characters are those of Nellie Courtright and William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody and, in a larger sense, that of the Old West, the passing into history of which Nellie serves as witness.

Nellie's story is told in the first person, and we meet her at age 22 in 1876 when she and her 17-year old brother, Jackson, lose their father to suicide, their mother and siblings having long since perished between Virginia and a homestead on a grassy tract of the West not yet part of a Territory. Abandoning their home, the two move to the tiny prairie town of Rita Blanca, where Jackson becomes the deputy sheriff and Nellie the Telegraph Lady. Later, Nellie relocates to North Platte to become Buffalo Bill's majordomo managing his land and investments, returns to Rita Blanca to become mayor, co-owns a newspaper in Tombstone, and settles down for the final leg in Southern California, where the air was "said to be so soft".

Nellie is feisty, independent-minded, sexually liberated, flirtatious, intelligent, multi-talented and possessing a dry sense of humor. It's a pleasure to observe as she interacts with some of the most famous personages of the age, including Cody, Jessie James, William ("Billy the Kid") Bonnie, the dysfunctional Earp brothers, "Doc" Holliday, and General of the Army William T. Sherman. And, it's in their company that she lives the passing of an era:

"So the years sailed on and the Old West, the West of Dodge City, Rita Blanca, and the O.K. Corral, quickly receded into myth. Over in Victorville, California, Western films were being rolled out by the dozen. I even wrote a couple myself ..."

TELEGRAPH DAYS may have a special poignancy for one born in the years immediately following WWII. In the fifties and sixties and into the seventies, westerns were all the rage on both the big and small screens, and our heroes were Hoppy, Roy, Gene, the Cisco Kid, the Lone Ranger, Paladin, Rin Tin-Tin, the Duke, Rowdy, Maverick, the Cartwrights, Marshal Dillon, and the Man with No Name. Nowadays, such films are rarely produced. Even Clint Eastwood has abandoned the genre. So, in a way, we've seen our own passing of the Old West, and it adds a special sadness as we ride on, spurs a-janglin', as sundown approaches.

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SO MANY MEN, SO LITTLE TIME

Larry McMurtrys Telegraph Days give us a glimpse of the old west from a woman's perspective. The woman in question is a 22 year old Virginia native, Nellis Courtright who with her 17 year old brother, Jackson, resides in the town of Rio Blanca, a nothing little place located in an area known as "no mans land". The towns tenuous claim to fame comes from a gunfight in which Jackson, through sheer luck, kills six members of the infamous Yazee Gang.

Nellie is a self-sufficient, unique and assertive women who captializes on her brothers feat by writing a pamphlet describing the event and selling it for 25 cents a copy. This is the beginning of an adventure that takes the reader from the dusty streets of the Oklahoma panhandle in the mid 1870's to the early days of Hollywood.

Nellie is an amorous gal but lacks a discriminating eye when it comes to the opposite sex. She finds herself attracted to any number of gents, some of whom are legends of the untamed old west. McMurtry manages to deftly weave actual historical figures like George Custer, Bill Hickock, Billy the Kid, Virgil Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody, and Jesse James into the various threads of Nellies life as she pursues fame and fortune in various careers ranging from telegraph operator to secretary/manager for Buffalo Bills Nebraska holdings to storyteller/author and finally to Hollywood screenwriter.

Larry McMurtry obviously loves the character and flavor of the old west and is able to realistically convey it's sights, sounds and smells. He seems to be particularly fascinated by its women. In this book, as in Buffalo Girls, his female characters are rarely run of the mill. Instead he chooses to portray them as "a hardy breed of survivors - - strong, organized, in control and rarely repentent. This latest heroine, Nellie Courtright, a "ladylike" pipe smoker could easily be the poster child for a group called "The Society of Willful Western Women".

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Pure Entertainment!

If you want an accurate historical account of the west than this is probably not the book for you.

However, if you desire a decidedly fictional account of the events of the west and a wonderful heroine, Nellie Courtwright, then you should find Telegraph Days a joy to read. Pure entertainment!

I listened to the audiobook read by Annie Potts - she was a perfect choice for the voice of Nellie.

Dangerous Ground

It is always dangerous for a man to write in the voice of a woman, and this is an exhibit of those dangers. The main charactger and narrator is Nellie. Her voice did not come off as genuine. Her entire personality seemed to be what a man would like to see in a woman - an aggressive woman who loves men. This was true for her entire personality, not just her admitted obsession with "copulation" (the frequent references became dull).

The fictitious supporting characters in the book were interesting and the best part of the book. They were actually more interesting than the narrator. The famous supporting cast included Wild Bill Hickcock and Buffalo Bill, with a cameo by Billy the Kid. They seemed contrived. It was the unknown fictitious characters that gave any genuine western flavor to the book.

There was some good humor and spoofing of the old western novels, but all in all, the plot lacked depth and at times approached tedium. Although the book was not awful, there was little to recommend it. Nellie has an interesting life, but it did not seem the author was that invested in it. Therefore neither is the reader.

A quick light read, but nothing great.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

I've come to think that in times of crisis human beings don't have it in them to be rational. The Yazee gang was riding down upon us, six abreast. We all ran outside and confirmed that fact. The sensible thing would have been to run and hide -- but did we? Not at all.

The narrator of Larry McMurtry's newest book is spunky Nellie Courtright, twenty-two years old and already wrapping every man in the West around her little finger. When she and her teenage brother Jackson are orphaned, she sweet-talks the local sheriff into hiring Jackson as a deputy, while she takes over the vacant job of town telegrapher. When, by pure blind luck, Jackson shoots down the entire Yazee gang, Nellie is quick to capitalize on his new notoriety by selling reviews to reporters. It seems wherever Nellie is, action is sure to happen, from a love affair with Buffalo Bill to a ringside seat at the O.K. Corral gunfight. Told with charm, humor, and an unparalleled zest for life, Nellie's story is the story of how the West was won.

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