McMurtry, Larry. All My Friends are Going to be Strangers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1972.
Reason read: Larry McMurtry’s birthday is in June so read in his honor.
I honestly couldn’t decide if I liked twenty-something Danny Dent. When we first meet the young writer, he is explaining how he went to Auston, Texas, and fell in love with a super beautiful woman named Sally. Sally had been the on and off girlfriend of another man but somehow Danny steals her away. From there, Danny’s life is a series of drunken ups and downs. Despite his first novel being so wildly successful it gets picked up for a movie deal, he can’t say the same for the rest of his life. There is a distinct dissatisfaction with everything. The plot meanders along as Danny tries to make sense of the relationships (mostly with women) in his life. It is nothing but a string of sexual escapades with different women and trying to work on a second novel. I was borderline bored the entire time.
Lines I liked, “Western Union and Southwestern Bell had combined to keep me faithful, at least for one evening” (p 24), “They left their questions in the same place I left my explanations” (p 67), and “I was too pinched by the newness of things just to go out on the street and seize people and make them my friends” (p 90).
Author fact: McMurtry just died this past March at the age of 84 years old.
Book trivia: All My Friends are Going to be Strangers is McMurtry’s sixth book.
Playlist: Fats Domino.
Nancy said: Pearl named All My Friends are Going to be Strangers as one of her three favorite books by McMurtry.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Texas Two-Step (After a Bob Wills Song)” (p 224).
~*LunaSea*~ 