My Friend Larry

By this point, I consider Larry McMurtry a close friend.

I first discovered him when I read The Last Picture Show over two days during a cold snap. When I found out he wrote Terms of Endearment and Lonesome Dove, I hastily bought those as well.

I was all set to read Lonesome Dove this past winter, as a sort of homage to my mother. She and my father always used to park themselves on our family sofa during the winter and watch the miniseries while my mother knit blankets for her grandchildren.

Only the book came at an awful time in my life, given the fact the fact that I was barreling right towards a nervous breakdown and a bender that almost took my lights out.

When it came time to pack for the rehab clinic, I packed drunk off of three bottles of wine and a handle of Maker’s Mark. I felt compelled to bring Swann’s Way and Terms of Endearment along with The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie, you know, the kind of light reading you’d expect someone to do when they’re at a rehab clinic.

After I finally read Postcards from the Edge, I re-read Daisy Jones and the Six, ordering a paperback off Amazon and devouring it within three days.

Terms of Endearment finally called out to me and I read it with great patience, McMurtry offering a scratch to an itch I’d been trying to ignore. I became more open in group therapy, getting over a self-imposed roadblock that happened after some friends left the clinic to get back on with their lives.

Of course Mr. McMurtry broke my heart, as he had when I read The Last Picture Show, but I was a willing sadist, hoping I could glean something from his melancholy sagacity.

When Sabrina Carpenter came out with her “Manchild” music video, I happened upon a subreddit where a Redditor asked if there was anything remotely similar to the vibes of that music video.

“Loop Group!” a fellow Redditor chimed in, “by Larry McMurtry!”

Naturally I bought it because that same Redditor described it as a lovechild between Terms of Endearment and Thelma and Louise. I was intrigued.

My mornings are spent with midnight black coffee, cigarettes, and Larry. I sit on my bed with all my pillows and my matted and well-loved teddy bear and I pore over his pages. Maggie and Connie delight me with their misadventures across the desert while Larry McMurtry narrates like God.