Lonesome Dove

Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winner is one of the most celebrated American novels of the twentieth century, and the praise is earned. The friendship between retired Texas Rangers Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call anchors an 900-page cattle drive that is really a meditation on aging, loyalty, and the cost of the frontier myth. McCrae especially is an unforgettable creation. That said, this book carries real content cautions for family and faith audiences: prostitution and brothels are recurring elements, there is sexual content and graphic violence including hangings, period-era racist and sexist language toward Native Americans and women runs throughout, and profanity is consistent. This is adult literary fiction by any measure, and the rating reflects both its genuine greatness and the honesty that its audience is grown readers who go in prepared.