Midwestern Region - History - General & Miscellaneous, Historical Biography - General & Miscellaneous, 19th Century US Westward Migration & Development - General, Military - United States - Indian Wars & Battles, 19th Century American History - Biography,

Custer

Name: Custer
Author: Larry McMurtry
ISBN: 9781451626209

by Larry McMurtry

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Overview

This lavishly illustrated volume reassesses and celebrates the life and legacy of the West’s most legendary figure, George Armstrong Custer, from “one of America’s great storytellers” (The Wall Street Journal).

On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer and his seventh cavalry attacked a large Lakota Cheyenne village on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. He lost not only the battle but his life and the lives of his entire cavalry. “Custer’s Last Stand” was a spectacular defeat that shocked the country and grew into a legend that has reverberated in the national consciousness to this day.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry has long been fascinated by the “Boy General” and his rightful place in history. Here he delivers an expansive, clear-eyed reassessment of his life and legacy, revealing a complex, perpetually restless man with a difficult marriage, a hunger for glory, and an unwavering confidence in his abilities. While Custer is first and foremost an enthralling story filled with larger-than-life characters—Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, Buffalo Bill Cody, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse—McMurtry also argues that Little Bighorn should be seen as a monumental event in American history, bringing to a close the great narrative of western expansion.

Featuring more than 100 photographs, paintings, and illustrations, Custer is a visually stunning and magisterial portrait of one of the paramount figures of Western and American history, as told by the greatest chronicler of the American West.

Synopsis

In this lavishly illustrated volume, Larry McMurtry, the greatest chronicler of the American West, tackles for the first time one of the paramount figures of Western and American history.

On June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry attacked a large Lakota Cheyenne village on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. He lost not only the battle but his life—and the lives of his entire cavalry. “Custer’s Last Stand” was a spectacular defeat that shocked the country and grew quickly into a legend that has reverberated in our national consciousness to this day.

Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurtry has long been fascinated by the “Boy General” and his rightful place in history. In Custer, he delivers an expansive, agile, and clear-eyed reassessment of the iconic general’s life and legacy—how the legend was born, the ways in which it evolved, what it has meant—told against the broad sweep of the American narrative. We see Custer in all his contradictions and complexity as the perpetually restless man with a difficult marriage, a hunger for glory, and an unwavering confidence in his abilities.

McMurtry explores how the numerous controversies that grew out of the Little Bighorn combined with a perfect storm of technological developments—the railroad, the camera, and the telegraph—to fan the flames of his legend. He shows how Custer’s wife, Libbie, worked for decades after his death to portray Major Marcus Reno as the cause of the disaster of the Little Bighorn, and how Buffalo Bill Cody, who ended his Wild West Show with a valiant reenactment of Custer’s Last Stand, played a pivotal role in spreading Custer’s notoriety.

While Custer is first and foremost an enthralling story filled with larger-than-life characters—Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, William J. Fetterman, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud—McMurtry also argues that Little Bighorn should be seen as a monumental event in our nation’s history. Like all great battles, its true meaning can be found in its impact on our politics and policy, and the epic defeat clearly signaled the end of the Indian Wars—and brought to a close the great narrative of western expansion. In Custer, Larry McMurtry delivers a magisterial portrait of a complicated, misunderstood man that not only irrevocably changes our long-standing conversation about Custer, but once again redefines our understanding of the American West.

About the Author, Larry McMurtry

Larry McMurtry is the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove, three memoirs, two collections of essays, and more than thirty screenplays. He lives in Archer City, Texas.

Biography

Back in the late 60s, the fact that Larry McMurtry was not a household name was really a thorn in the side of the writer. To illustrate his dissatisfaction with his status, he would go around wearing a T-shirt that read "Minor Regional Novelist." Well, more than thirty books, two Oscar-winning screenplays, and a Pulitzer Prize later, McMurtry is anything but a minor regional novelist.

Having worked on his father's Texas cattle ranch for a great deal of his early life, McMurtry had an inborn fascination with the West, both its fabled history and current state. However, he never saw himself as a life-long rancher and aspired to a more creative career. He achieved this at the age of 25 when he published his first novel. Horseman, Pass By was a wholly original take on the classic western. Humorous, heartbreaking, and utterly human, this story of a hedonistic cowboy in contemporary Texas was a huge hit for the young author and even spawned a major motion picture starring Paul Newman called Hud just two years after its 1961 publication. Extraordinarily, McMurtry was even allowed to write the script, a rare honor for such a novice.

With such an auspicious debut, it is hard to believe that McMurtry ever felt as though he'd been slighted by the public or marginalized as a minor talent. While all of his books may not have received equal attention, he did have a number of astounding successes early in his career. His third novel The Last Picture Show, a coming-of-age-in-the-southwest story, became a genuine classic, drawing comparisons to J. D. Salinger and James Jones. In 1971, Peter Bogdonovich's screen adaptation of the novel would score McMurtry his first Academy award for his screenplay. Three years later, he published Terms of Endearment, a critically lauded urban family drama that would become a hit movie starring Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine in 1985.

That year, McMurtry published what many believe to be his definitive novel. An expansive epic sweeping through all the legends and characters that inhabited the old west, Lonesome Dove was a masterpiece. All of the elements that made McMurtry's writing so distinguished -- his skillful dialogue, richly drawn characters, and uncanny ability to establish a fully-realized setting -- convened in this Pulitzer winning story of two retired Texas rangers who venture from Texas to Montana. The novel was a tremendous critical and commercial favorite, and became a popular miniseries in 1989.

Following the massive success of Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry's prolificacy grew. He would publish at least one book nearly every year for the next twenty years, including Texasville, a gut-wrenching yet hilarious sequel to The Last Picture Show, Buffalo Girls, a fictionalized account of the later days of Calamity Jane, and several non-fiction titles, such as Crazy Horse.

Interestingly, McMurtry would receive his greatest notoriety in his late 60s as the co-screenwriter of Ang Lee's controversial film Brokeback Mountain. The movie would score the writer another Oscar and become one of the most critically heralded films of 2005. The following year he published his latest novel. Telegraph Days is a freewheeling comedic run-through of western folklore and surely one of McMurtry's most inventive stories and enjoyable reads. Not bad for a "minor regional novelist."

Good To Know

A miniseries based on McMurtry's novel Comanche Moon is currently in production. McMurtry co-wrote the script.

The first-printing of McMurtry's novel In a Narrow Grave is one of his most obscure for a rather obscure reason. The book was withdrawn because the word "skyscrapers" was misspelled as "skycrappers" on page 105.

McMurtry comes from a long line of farmers and ranchers. His father and eight of his uncles were all in the profession.

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

When Larry McMurtry writes, people read. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove has established his credentials in novels, memoirs, essays, and screenplays. Thus, when he fixes his attention on General George Armstrong Custer (1839-1876), readers instinctively perk up. This generously illustrated biography of the most legendary figure of the West presents not just the fabled Last Stand, but all that led before. McMurtry clearly views Custer as a restless, enigmatic man whose passion for glory was fulfilled only posthumously. In several ways, Custer is a perfect match-up of subject and author; an encounter of two authentic Western spirits.

The New York Times Book Review

…a brief, breezy tour of the man and the conflict, complete with an astonishing variety of photographs and artistic renderings. McMurtry…is short on words and long on illustrations here. For a writer of epics, Custer qualifies as haiku. But the reader is in good hands; it's as if McMurtry invited a customer to the back of his Texas bookstore to spend an afternoon going through his collection.
—Timothy Egan

The New York Times Book Review

A brief, breezy tour of the man and the conflict, complete with an astonishing variety of photographs and artistic renderings. . . . The reader is in good hands; it’s as if McMurtry invited a customer to the back of his Texas bookstore to spend an afternoon going through his collection.
— Timothy Egan

USA Today

“McMurtry’s book does what dozens of others on Custer have not. It cuts through many of the myths. . . . It’s entertaining and educational at the same time.”

The New York Times Book Review

“A brief, breezy tour of the man and the conflict, complete with an astonishing variety of photographs and artistic renderings. . . . The reader is in good hands; it’s as if McMurtry invited a customer to the back of his Texas bookstore to spend an afternoon going through his collection.”

Booklist

“Pulitzer Prize-winner McMurtry continues to be an outstanding chronicler of Western legend and lore.”

The Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

“It is plain speaking that McMurtry delivers . . . the same laconic, whimsical voice that makes his novels so entertaining and readable. The effect is as if one is sitting in a small lecture hall, listening as McMurtry tells his stories from a few notes in a rambling style . . . often revealing and insightful as well as wry and funny.”

Smithsonian Magazine

Thoroughness wasn’t Larry McMurtry’s aim when he set out to write this brief treatment. . . . What McMurtry has produced is indeed appealing, with vivid images of Custer, his family and his battles. . . . Despite the lengthy consideration that the author has obviously given his subject. . . this is no hagiography.

The Wall Street Journal

“Larry McMurtry, chronicler of the American West, takes on the controversial figure of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in his newest book . . . to contribute to the canon with a short biography that would help bring the complex man into focus.”

The New Yorker

“Larry McMurtry has the power to clutch the heart and also to exhilarate.”

Chicago Tribune

“Few authors match McMurtry’s voice of unsentimental authority.”

The Washington Post

“McMurtry has reminded us that, in the hands of a maser, entertaining, old-fashioned storytelling rooted firmly in uniquely American experiences and landscape is pretty darn hard to beat.”

Library Journal

Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) assesses the short life of Gen. George Armstrong Custer and Custer's ongoing role in shaping concepts of the American West. As a seasoned Western literary icon, McMurtry cuts through the immense body of Custer literature to write an engaging, often irreverent, biography for a 21st-century audience more familiar with pop culture than detailed academic accounts of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Contemporary documentary photographs and artwork (more than 150 color images) are used to great effect for providing historic context. McMurtry produces a balanced account of Custer's controversial life and death, keeping his comments relevant, succinct, and compelling. VERDICT Strongly recommended for public and school libraries as a masterful and insightful biography, as well as a guide to the key historical sources about Custer. This text will be appreciated by both scholars and Custer enthusiasts, even though theories about whether the general's nature was inherently heroic, psychotic, or cowardly are not discussed here at any length.—Nathan E. Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., Laramie, WY

Library Journal

McMurtry on George Armstrong Custer; that should be larger than life. With no cavalry survivors and only scattered Indian accounts after Custer and his 7th Cavalry attacked a large Lakota Cheyenne village on the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, it's hard to say what really happened on that hot June day in 1876. But McMurtry's account of the man should be vivid—for one thing, there are 150 four-color illustrations.

Kirkus Reviews

A Pulitzer Prize winner's idiosyncratic take on one of American history's great blunderers. Clearly well-read on the subject--McMurtry (Hollywood: A Third Memoir, 2011, etc.) generously refers readers to Evan Connell, Nathaniel Philbrick and others for more detailed information--once the owner of a vast collection of Custer-ology, twice a visitor to the Little Big Horn battlefield, the celebrated novelist offers not quite a history and barely the "short life of Custer" he proposes. Rather, this effort is best understood as an informed commentary on the dashing cavalry officer and on the Custer moment, the closing of "the narrative of American settlement," which featured an unusual twist: a dramatic victory by the ultimate losers, the Native Americans. A few of McMurtry's observations are not especially interesting (the author's own encounters with the Crow and Cheyenne tribes), and some wander off topic (Sitting Bull's passion for Annie Oakley), but many offer fresh insights on the Custer story. McMurtry fruitfully muses on the striking similarities between Custer and another overhyped western legend, John C. Fremont, the "confusion of tongues" that complicated the period of Western settlement, the willingness of Custer's Indian scouts to accompany their commander to a certain death, George and Libbie Custer's complicated marriage and the "modern" (in 1876) media mechanisms poised to supercharge Custer's fame. Many products of that publicity machine are spectacularly reproduced here, including photos, maps, paintings, lithographs, posters, magazine covers and newspaper headlines, all of which attest to the national fascination with this endlessly revisited story and with the man whose final message to his subordinate--"Come on, be quick. Be quick"--went tragically unheeded. The distilled perceptions of a lifetime of study, beautifully illustrated.

USA Today (3.5 out of 4 stars)

“McMurtry’s book does what dozens of others on Custer have not. It cuts through many of the myths. . . . It’s entertaining and educational at the same time.”