Leaving Cheyenne, Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster, 1962) ***

For those of you who always wanted to read Larry McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize winning Lonesome Dove but were intimidated by its size, he wrote a little gem of a novel way back in 1962 called Leaving Cheyenne which is just as memorable and only one-third as long. This novel, like others of McMurtry's novels (e.g., The Last Picture Show), deals with the impact of new ways on the old ways of life. Set in west Texas, it's a love triangle involving a serious-minded rancher, Gideon Fry; his rambunctious cowboy friend, Johnny McCloud; and the impressionable but independent woman they both love, Molly Taylor. The story is told from the point of view of each of these three characters and encompasses a period of forty years, during which time Molly bears each of them a child. It is a story where friendship and love are so closely entwined that you're never quite sure how the story will end, or even how you'd want it to end.