August 11, 2020 – The ExhaustNotes Blog

The greatest story ever told: That’s Larry McMurtry’s blockbuster work, Lonesome Dove. We’ve touched on it before with our book review on Revolver – Sam Colt and the Six Shooter that Changed America. This is another book review, and a movie review, too, as Lonesome Dove was also made into a four-part TV special three decades ago.

McMurtry wrote Lonesome Dove in 1985. It was loosely based on the true story of Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving, and their third cattle drive north. I have a copy of Lonesome Dove that I bought when it first came out, and I’ve probably read it a half dozen times. Sometimes a few years will go by before I see it tucked away in the bookshelf, and I’ll pull it down and take a few days to read it again Even though I know what’s coming next (I almost have it memorized), I still enjoy reading it. It’s that good.

Motown Productions did the Lonesome Dove four-part television mini-series in 1989. Most of the time a movie based on a book gives up a lot, but this one did not. When it pops up as a re-run, I’m in. I’ve probably watched it no fewer than five times.

The scenes in both the book and the TV series (which stayed faithful to the novel) are well crafted and memorable. Several stood out, including the river crossing water moccasin attack, McCrae’s taking out a group of renegades while rescuing Lorena, Call’s horse-collision-takedown of an arrogant and abusive cavalry officer, and the bar room scene in which McCrae puts his Colt Walker to good use teaching a surly bartender western etiquette (that one is my favorite).

If you’ve read the book or seen the TV series, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, you need to. Trust me on this one one, folks. The next time Lonesome Dove is on TV you’ll want to see it, and if you have a chance to grab a copy of Lonesome Dove, you should do so.

More ExNotes reviews are here.

My daughter buys books for me, and she has a knack for finding great ones she knows I will enjoy. The latest in a long line of successes is Jim Rasenberger’s Revolver: Sam Colt and the Six-Shooter That Changed America. I enjoyed the book on many levels because I’m a shooter, I like biographies, I’m a student of business success, I like to read about mechanical things, and I love history (especially the history of the American West). Revolver checked all the boxes.

Samuel Colt was anything but an overnight success, but successful he sure was. He was one of the key figures in our Industrial Revolution, and he made the concept of interchangeable parts and mass production work well before Henry Ford came along. Colt started out as sailor on a merchant vessel, he became a huckster selling laughing gas exhibitions, he failed at his first attempt to build a firearms manufacturing business, and then he succeeded wildly when he worked with Samuel Walker, the Texas Ranger who guided Colt’s design of the famous Colt Walker. Revolver delves deeply into all this, including the Colt Walker story, and a grand story it is.

On that topic of the Colt Walker: The Walker was the .44 Magnum of its day, a gun so over-the-top in size and power that as Colonel Colt observed, “it would take a Texan to fire it.” I always thought it would be cool to own a Walker, but Colt only made 1,100 of them, and originals don’t come up for sale too often. The last one that did went for over a million dollars. The blogging business is good, folks, but it ain’t that good.

Robert Duvall as Gus MacCrae in Lonesome Dove, the greatest story ever told (in my opinion). Gus carried a Colt Walker.

Uberti, a company in Italy, manufactures a replica of the original Colt Walker, and reading Revolver gave me the push I needed. I ordered one this morning. Good buddies Paul and Duane are both black powder aficionados, and I figure they can give me the help I’ll need learning how to load and shoot these historical weapons.