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Comanche Moon : A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Larry Mcmurtry
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
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Rating:  140 reviews
Sales Rank: 14083
Media: Paperback
Pages: 720
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.3 x 1.7
ISBN: 0684857553
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780684857558
ASIN: 0684857553
Publication Date: October 17, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
In a book that serves as a both a sequel to Dead Man's Walk and a prequel to the beloved Lonesome Dove, McMurtry fills in the missing chapters in the Call and McCrae saga. It is a fantastic read, in many ways the best and gutsiest of the series. We join the Texas Rangers in their waning Indian-fighting years. The Comanches, after one last desperate raid led by the fearsome-but-aging Buffalo Hump, are almost defeated, though Buffalo Hump's son, Blue Duck, still terrorizes the relentless flow of settlers and lawmen. As Augustus and Woodrow follow one-eyed, tobacco-spitting Captain Inish Scull deep into a murderous madman's den in Mexico, their thoughts turn toward the end of their careers and the women they love in remarkably different ways back in Austin. What's amazing about McMurtry's West is that he sees beyond the romance. Neither his Indians, his cowboys, his gunslingers, nor his women act the way they did in either Zane Grey novels or John Wayne movies. Incredible beauty and lightning-quick violence are the bookends of his West, but it is the in-between moments of suffering and boredom where McMurtry shines. The suffering is poignant and heart-rending; the boredom tempered with doses of Augustus McCrae's sharp humor. Don't be surprised if you find yourself crying and laughing on the same page.
Product Description
THE NATIONAL BESTSELLERThe second book of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove tetralogy, Comache Moon takes us once again into the world of the American West. Texas Rangers August McCrae and Woodrow Call, now in their middle years, continue to deal with the ever-increasing tensions of adult life -- Gus with his great love, Clara Forsythe, and Call with Maggie Tilton, the young whore who loves him. Two proud but very different men, they enlist with the Ranger troop in pursuit of Buffalo Hump, the great Comanche war chief; Kicking Wolf, the celebrated Comanche horse thief; and a deadly Mexican bandit king with a penchant for torture. Assisting the Rangers in their wild chase is the renowned Kickapoo tracker, Famous Shoes. Comanche Moon closes the twenty-year gap between Dead Man's Walk and Lonesome Dove, following beloved heroes Gus and Call and their comrades in arms -- Deets, Jake Spoon, and Pea Eye Parker -- in their bitter struggle to protect the advancing West frontier against the defiant Comanches, courageously determined to defend their territory and their way of life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 135 more reviews...
 Lots of Problems, but Still Enjoyable (3.5 Stars) February 25, 2005
D. Mikels (Skunk Holler)
36 out of 45 found this review helpful
First, I will wail, and lament, and gnash my teeth (all five of them). "Lonesome Dove," THE definitive novel of the American West, should have proudly stood all alone, on its own shining merits, sans sequels and prequels. From what I understand, several motives drove Larry McMurtry to write the other three books in the "Lonesome Dove" series; I only wish he had resisted all temptations and allowed Gus and Call to dwell in literary history exclusively in the pages of his Pulitzer Prize winning novel. But, I realize, I'm whistling up a ladder: a sequel ("Streets of Laredo") and two prequels ("Dead Man's Walk" and COMANCHE MOON) were written, and now that the "Lonesome Dove" series is complete, with McMurtry's COMANCHE MOON, I found myself relishing a psuedo "closure" with the story--with the author's unforgettable characters.
COMANCHE MOON is a delightful read, starting in the mid-1850's, when Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call were coming into their own as newly-promoted Captains in the Texas Rangers. Gus and Call's main task: keep marauding bands of Comanches, led by the menacing Buffalo Hump, out of the western frontier settlements (no easy task, given the Rangers' limited resources and manpower). Even more fun, we get to meet, for the first time, the mainstays of Lonesome Dove's Hat Creek Cattle Company: Deets, Pea Eye Parker, Jake Spoon--Newt Dobbs. For this very reason, there is so much more of a "connection" with "Lonesome Dove," a fact making this prequel so entertaining.
Yet, despite its entertainment value, what is this book about? What is the motor that drives the story? Why are we reading about Gus and Call as they travel the llano estacado in search of bad guys (some very, very bad guys)? I must confess: after some 750-plus pages, I still don't know what this book is about, as the plot meanders and swirls over some 10-year period, and nothing. . .nothing. . .is resolved, when it ends. We are introduced to a plethora of interesting characters, who do very interesting things, but their deeds (or misdeeds) do nothing to enhance the nonstory. And Maggie Tilton, Newt's long-suffering mother who so desperately loves Call, leaves the story with an insignificant whimper that did her character no justice. On turning the last page I felt so incomplete I wish there had been another 300, or more, pages to tie up infinite loose ends. For one thing: the town--Lonesome Dove--does, briefly, dominate the story, yet we're given no details telling us how Gus and Call left the Rangers, left Austin, and moved south to the Rio Grande. An integral facet setting up "Lonesome Dove," I would maintain, so why doesn't McMurtry provide more information?
There are also numerous chronological/timeline/plot inconsistencies leading into "Lonesome Dove," but I won't go over this tired old ground; it's been rehashed via several reviews on this website. But I will express my utter disapointment, for a book coming out of a major publishing house like Simon & Schuster, at all the typos--and just plain sloppiness--of the copy. Where in the world were the copy editors? On Spring Break? They weren't paying attention to the proofs, that's for sure, so reading this book becomes a most turbulent experience.
For diehard fans of the "Lonesome Dove" series, COMANCHE MOON will, overall, constitute a must-read. For those of us who mourn the fact the original novel spawned three other books, this novel has its moments--and its problematic non-moments. I only wish this book hadn't been written, but since it has, I recommend it with very reserved reluctance.
--D. Mikels
 A worthy prequel to the classic Lonesome Dove November 2, 1997
Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States)
25 out of 28 found this review helpful
"Comanche Moon" is described as the final volume of the "Lonesome Dove" saga although chronologically it is the second of the four novels, taking place between "Dead Man's Walk" and "Lonesome Dove". Readers of the other volumes in series will encounter familiar names here: Woodrow Call and Gus McCrae, of course, but also Jake Spoon and Pea Eye Parker and Deets of "Dove", Long Bill Coleman and Buffalo Hump of "Walk", Famous Shoes and Charlie Goodnight of "Streets of Laredo" and others. As has become increasingly evident in his novels, McMurtry is not concerned with presenting a story of the West correct in all the minor historical details. For example, in "Comanche Moon" we find one character armed with a Winchester rifle 10 years before that weapon's introduction. Instead, his aim appears to be to create a story of about four parts gritty realism and one part romantic myth - and in "Comanche Moon" he achieves success. The novel abounds with characters more extravagant, larger-than-life personalities, yet these people are true to the story McMurtry is telling. Captain Inish Scull of the Texas Rangers and his wife, Inez, and the "Black Vaquero" Ahumado are unlikely to have had close real-life models, but in "Comanche Moon" they are forceful, fascinating figures. As is usual, McMurtry's characters are driven by their own obsessions. If I might sum up the theme of this novel, and much else of McMurtry's fiction, I would say that it would be "times change, people don't" - and not just "people" in the larger sense, but people as individuals, holding true to their own particular, narrow view of how they should live their lives. Characters like Woodrow Call and Inish Scull and Buffalo Hump are admirable because of their great integrity, no matter what destruction they seed while pursuing their individual visions of what is right. In "Comanche Moon", McMurtry's Indian characters - the Comanche Buffalo Hump and Kicking Wolf and the Kickapoo Famous Shoes - are perhaps more finely drawn than in any of the other Lonesome Dove books. They are not merely white men wearing paint and feathers. They live and die by their own logic, as alien as that system of belief may seem to a late Twentieth Century reader. Although any judgment must be subjective, I would rate "Comanche Moon" as at least the equal of "Streets of Laredo" and better than "Dead Man's Walk", although not so high as the magnificent "Lonesome Dove". I know that part of my enjoyment of the novel is my familiarity with several of the major characters, and my advice to any reader new to the "Lonesome Dove" saga would be to read the books in their order of publication rather than their chronological order of internal dates.
Once again, McMurtry diverts, distorts and delights. May 12, 1998
Mieskie@mindspring.com (Ohio)
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
How can one man write four books about the same characters with no concern for continuity? I don't know, but I am equally clueless as to how he can dispense with continuity, alter events, change characters' histories and personalities and still make me love the work. As he did in Streets of Laraedo and Dead Man's Walk, McMurty changes certain elements of his well established characters' pasts. The changes are most glaring in this book, the immeadiate precursor to his magnificent Lonesome Dove. However, as poorly as his four Gus and Call books fit together, they stand alone very well. In Comanche Moon, McMurtry leads us from Gus and Call in their late twenties to their mid fourties. It appears to end roughly 5 or so years prior to Lonesome Dove. Many will be surprised and delighted to find that the relationship between Call and Maggie, mother of Call's son Newt, is well defined and much more significant than was alluded to in Dove. Another detail that completely reverses itself from Dove is that of the life of Jake Spoon. Far from a romantic rival with Gus for the heart of Clara Allen, Jake is a dippy young moron, afraid of any action, desperate to end his days as a Ranger alive. But much of the action here centers on a new character, Capt. Skull, the rangering Ranger captain who gives Gus and Call their first command by abandoning them and the Ranger troop in order to learn how to track by walking off with Famous Shoes. Skull is a classic McMurtry eccentric, and the only person whom really provides any suspense, as only the future of his life is unknown to us. Skull is witty and full of vim and vinegar. His battles, both mental and physical, are among the most engaging portions of the story. And the most revolting.Certainly, the way McMurty takes liberties with characters that many love is often maddening, but when seperated from the other books, Comanche Moon stands on its own well. It is another gripping and unflinching look at an unromanticized American West, and it continues the! excellent development of the Indian characters McMurtry began in Dead Man's Walk. Buffalo Hump, Kicking Wolf and Blue Duck are fleshed out in a manner that is not often seen with Indians in most Western novels. Far from ciphers, they are realistic characters that cause you to see that Ranger-Indian fights are not as simple as Good vs. Evil. They are, rather, Man vs. Man, and Culture vs. Culture, and they are all the more heartbreaking because of it. I don't know if McMurtry is getting lazy. I don't know if he simply doesn't give a damn about whether or not readers care. In the end, it really doesn't matter as he still can deliver page turners with the best of them. And by the the time you finish Comanche Moon, you realize that the changes in Gus and Call's history, changes that can make rereading Lonesome Dove jarring, are for the best. This is how he should have set up their pasts in Dove. It a richer, more poignant past for Gus and Call than what was alluded to in that Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Finally, the audio presentation is top notch. Of course, how could it not be with the peerless Frank Muller as narrator?
 Fades in comparison... July 4, 2001
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
I LOVE Lonesome Dove. I own the movie and watch it every couple of years and bawl like a baby every time. That always spawns a big reading spree of the whole series. I started with Dead Man's Walk figuring I'd read my way from start to finish in chronological order. I finished it and immediately devoured Comanche Moon, then dashed to Half Price Books for Lonesome Dove. Not even ten pages into Lonesome Dove it was glaringly obvious that either Mr. McMurtry didn't write the others, as I had always heard, or if he did it was under a quick deadline or extreme duress. The writing style is completely different, the wit is missing, the details first revealed in Lonesome Dove don't match (1.Maggie lived and died in Lonesome Dove, not Austin; 2.Gus was significantly older than Clara. He was married to his second wife when he met her; 3. He was married to wife #1 for 2 years, wife #2 for seven. They didn't both die within months of marriage as told in Comanche Moon. I could go ON and ON) and the historical FACTS are askew. Buffalo Hump was leading his people to a reservation in 1856 - not on a raid to the ocean. The raid was in 1840. And the hump on his back? I haven't found a reference to it yet in Texas History books. Oh, Comanche Moon is a decent read if you can ignore the facts and don't miss the lack of trademark McMurtry humor, but I'll stick with Lonesome Dove and skip the first two next time.
Comanch Moon has a compelling story but continuity problems May 23, 2005
ChloeDoc24*7 (Vancouver, BC., Canada)
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
Lonesome Dove, a masterpiece, deserved the Pulitzer Prize but the prequels and sequel have been disappointments. Comanch Moon is actually one of the better books of the series but there are some inconsistencies in continuity that make me think McMurtry forgot what he wrote before or perhaps he got someone else to wtite these less than stellar books. For instance the histories of Clara and Maggie the women who loved the main protaganists do not match up with the Lonesome Dove descriptions. Clara never returns to Austin TX to runs her parents' store as in LD after a terrible Indian attack in which her parents perish. She marries a dumb horse trader from Kentucky and leaves Texas forever leaving the store to languish in CM. Maggie, Call's ever suffering prostitute lover never makes it to Lonesome Dove to languish and die as an alcoholic as she does in the first book. Instead she dies of consumption 6 years after cleaning up her life and having Newt in Austin Tx in CM. Neither does the past marital history of Augustus ring true. Did he marry two fat women and become widowed after less than one year each or was 7 years his longest marriage?
Are they piddly details in an otherwise compelling story? Perhaps. But it is certainly annoyingly disappointing to encounter these simple continuity mistakes. Why make such mistakes in your own books? The changes wouldn't improve the story but only make one suspicious.
I think Margaret Mitchell had it right to not try to inflict on the public a sequel to Gone with the Wind. No one could ever top it. Look at the romance novel sequel that followed 50 years later written by another author and a different writing style. Take my advice. Read Lonesome Dove and enjoy but I wouldn't think it necessary to read the other books in the series.
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