Buffalo Girls - by Larry McMurtry (Paperback)

About the Book

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, McMurtry rediscovered the myth of the Old West and gave it new life in books such as "Lonesome Dove" and "Anything for Billy." McMurtry once again looks to the Old West and brings to life the legendary Calamity Jane in "Buffalo Girls."

Book Synopsis

A strange old woman caked in Montana mud pens a letter to her darling daughter back East--the writer's name is Martha Jane, but her friends call her Calamity...

I am the Wild West, no show about it. I was one of the people who kept it wild.

Larry McMurtry returns to the territory of his Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork, Lonesome Dove, to sing the song of Calamity Jane's last ride. In a letter to her daughter back East, Martha Jane is not shy about her own importance. Martha Jane--better known as Calamity--is just one of the handful of aging legends who travel to London as part of Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in Buffalo Girls. As he describes the insatiable curiosity of Calamity's Indian friend No Ears, Annie Oakley's shooting match with Lord Windhouveren, and other highlights of the tour, McMurtry turns the story of a band of hardy, irrepressible survivors into an unforgettable portrait of love, fellowship, dreams, and heartbreak.

Review Quotes

Houston Chronicle Not since Lonesome Dove has [Larry McMurtry] written so movingly about the disappearance of the West.

Newsday Buffalo Girls is as pure and sweet as a waltz played on a cold night. You'll love it.

The New York Times A wonderfully warm and touching elegy to the passing of the frontier...a salute to the dying West, as rendered through McMurtry's wonderfully quirky characters.

About the Author

Larry McMurtry (1936-2021) was 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 lived in Archer City, Texas.