A review by horthhill
Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry

5.0

Larry McMurtry’s “Horseman, Pass By” is a western and a coming-of-age story set in Texas at a specific time: July 1954. Lonnie, a seventeen year-old, lives with his grand-father and step-grand-mother, and much older step-brother, Hud, on a large ranch. His grand-father is eighty-six and still actively working. He’s a cattleman of the old west: a man of great integrity and past. Hud is wild and grasping: a man whose behaviour presages an ominous future. Lonnie finds himself pulled between these two dominating men and the west they represent. He’s disposition is inclined to his grand-father but Hud’s world seems attractive. Within a month, a catastrophe strikes the ranch. Lonnie strikes out on his own, but where he goes is left uncertain.