McMurtry's Published Dichotomies

Several people who've noted that I was reading a Larry McMurtry novel expressed a bit of skepticism, if not disapproval, as if they'd caught me with the latest work of Danielle Steel. How easy it is to forget that McMurtry won a Pulitzer Prize for the almost universally-lauded Lonesome Dove, and actually published some other very well-regarded books amidst his much less impressive work. The first ~180 pages of The Last Picture Show have been uniformly excellent, and I would have no trouble recommending it. If you have previously shared my friends' disdain for McMurtry because of a (likely justified) uncharitable view of his lesser works, I'd encouage you to pick it up. If you like it, it has two sequels that are also supposed to be rather good.