Lonnie Bannon growing up on a ranch near Thalia Texas with the help of Granddad, Halmea, and Hud. ( )

Horseman, Pass By is McMurtry's first novel and the first in the Thalia series. It is about a 1950s north Texas cattle ranch that runs up against a terrible cattle illness that requires painful decisions by the aging rancher. The story is told from the point of view of his 17 year old grandson who is essential watching the frontier change, ushering in the modern era of the west and his own adulthood. There are some gruesome and painful scenes but as always McMurtry's writing is very evocative of time and place and paints a romantic picture despite the horrors unfolding. Still, it was wholly depressing to read. ( )

Horseman, Pass By is the first Western novel written by the recently deceased American writer Larry McMurtry. It was published when he was just 25 in 1961. This modern western portrays life on a cattle ranch from the perspective of young narrator Lonnie Bannon. Set in post-World War II Texas (1954), the Bannon ranch is owned by Lonnie's grandfather, Homer Bannon. Homer's ruthless stepson, Hud, stands as the primary antagonist of the novel, who desires to inherit the ranch from Homer by any means. The novel inspired the film Hud, starring Paul Newman as the title character.

This novel helped to elevate the western from it's pulp status to one of literature. Horseman, Pass By is about many things: toxic masculinity (in the character of Hud), the influence of modernity on an old way of life and making a living, and it's a warm yet melancholy coming of age tale. Lonnie, our 17 year old teenage narrator - grows up quick on the ranch between Hud's cruelty and his grandfather's old-school ways yet he longs to escape his situation, to escape the small town Thalia. His grandfather Homer is portrayed as an aging, stubborn rancher who is attached to his way of life and does not want to let go of his ranch, despite Hud's forceful insistence and his sickly cattle. Hud - is a womanizer, a drunk, and the threat to Homer's way of life. He is our villian - who is consumed by greed and lust. At the end of the novel we are supposed to view Homer - in one pivotal scene - as if he too was just one of the sickly cattle on the ranch. And it is suggested that it is the humane thing to out him of his misery. Homer's way of life is strong-and can only be killed violently - so it is a fitting end that he meets.

Horseman, Pass By is a beautiful, violent, melancholy, atmospheric novel. It's a tough, nostalgic narrative of a young man growing up in Texas.

It's pure poetry. Larry McMurtry was a master of his craft.

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Larry McMurtry's first novel is a rather remarkable slice of Texas life in the relatively modern era. HORSEMAN, PASS BY was made into a popular movie, HUD. But the novel is darker than the film, which nudged one character's moral character slightly toward the sympathetic and shoved another character into an entirely different race. Paul Newman, at the height of his coolness and fame when HUD was filmed, played the title character with menace, anger, and plenty of moral turpitude. But he also played him cool, with a radiant charm that almost succeeded in overcoming the darkness at Hud's heart. It is unlikely that Newman would have ever taken the role of Hud had it been certain to follow precisely in the book's depiction. It's just as unlikely that the film itself would have been made had it been a requirement not to water it down. In the movie, Hud is an anti-hero, and Newman in the role became the pinup boy for such types. In HORSEMAN, PASS BY, Hud is more than an anti-hero. He is largely despicable. At one point in the book, he commits an act so outrageous and horrifying that it is hard to imagine how anyone ever thought of making a movie with Paul Newman out of the book. But the rest of the book is reflected rather well in the film, and there is the same taste of loneliness, isolation, and desperation in both, a reflection of the harsh life in the North Texas ranchlands. Hud's father Homer faces obstacles every day in running his cattle ranch, but the discovery of one dead heifer catapults him into the greatest challenge of his life. His grandson Lonnie, the book's (and film's) viewpoint character, loves his grandfather and the ranch, but yearns for some inchoate desire he can't quite define. McMurtry is a master at the dialogue of these cattle folk, people identical to the ones he grew up with in North Texas in a town very much like Thalia, the town he focuses on in this and several other books. It's a moving and affecting ride through the lives of some hard people and some harder hearts. ( )

Slow paced story of struggling rancher being undermined by nefarious stepson, told from the perspective of teenaged grandson. Mcmurtry’s prose is wonderful as he captures the Texas drawl and attitude of ranchers, the story is ultimately about the power struggle between the old man rancher and his nasty stepson. ( )