Horseman, Pass By

A stunning literary debut, Horseman, Pass By (1961) exhibits the “full-blooded Western genius” ( Publishers Weekly ) that would come to define McMurtry’s incomparable sensibility. In the dusty north Texas town of Thalia, young Lonnie Bannon quietly endures the pangs of maturity as a persistent rivalry between his grandfather and step-uncle, Hud, festers, and a deadly disease spreads among their cattle like wildfire.