In the following essay, Phillips explores the transition in McMurtry's portrayal of the Western frontier legend, examining the symbolic treatment of the ranch in the author's first five novels.

In the following essay, Giles, a professor of American Literature at Northern Illinois University, considers the transformation of Texas literature and compares the work of McMurtry and John Rechy.

In the following essay, Cox compares the historic record of Billy the Kid with McMurtry's depiction of him in Anything for Billy.

In the following essay, Sanderson—in the context of considering modern Texan popular culture—critiques Anything for Billy, commenting on McMurtry's dual role as a writer reacting to and creating Texas myths.

Northrop Frye writes in Anatomy of Criticism, "Of all fictions, the marvellous journey is the one formula that is never exhausted." I would add that the aimless journey, wandering, is also a timeless formula and one with a relatively constant meaning. This archetypal structure, the journey, variously pervades and controls the novels of Larry McMurtry and extends their import beyond the limits of a regional commentary. McMurtry's five novels have not generally been considered in relation...

Larry McMurtry recently published his first non-fiction book [In a Narrow Grave], a collection of essays on Texas customs, beliefs, and cities. It will be interesting to compare this book with his novels, all of which display a knowledge of and respect for the land. But McMurtry displays no sentimentality or nostalgia for the country, however descriptively he has written of it…. McMurtry has written about life in the country and in the dead or dying little towns from first hand experience. In doing s...

In the following review of Buffalo Girls, Schaeffer—also an author—praises McMurtry's work, saying the appeal of the novel stems from McMurtry's portrayal of an era at the cusp of change.

In the following review of Zeke and Ned, Maynard, a novelist, states that McMurtry and coauthor Diana Ossana have a created a rich, entertaining, embellished myth.

In the following review, Clemons praises Leaving Cheyenne as McMurtry's best work, lamenting its lack of popularity.

One of the most interesting young novelists in the Southwest—and certainly the most embattled in terms of the frontier heritage—is Larry McMurtry. He should be examined in some detail for a review of his literary inquiry serves to summarize both the uses and dangers of the frontier inheritance as it affects the newest generation of southwestern writers to toil under its shadow. McMurtry's first two novels, Horseman, Pass By and Leaving Cheyenne, were promising efforts to put the materia...

In the review below, Champlin praises McMurtry for his analysis of the emerging problems with the American film industry.

Somebody's Darling has an interesting story to tell: Hollywood has chosen Jill Peel, a shy, witty, work-obsessed animator and cinematic technician, to be America's first woman film director. Her initial effort, Womanly Ways, is successful, so successful that it sends her on to the New York Film Festival, an Oscar, and the direction of a second film, this one a Western, to be shot on location in Texas. Jill's success, however, proves insistent; it places her in the confidence of a dying ...

In the following review, Kingsolver, a novelist and author of The Bean Trees, states that despite a weak ending, Some Can Whistle is engaging and entertaining.

In the review below, Gish, the author of Frontier's End, praises Anything for Billy as an intriguing example of a new type of Western.

It isn't entirely Larry McMurtry's fault that his new novel [Cadillac Jack] gives off a strong sense of déjà vu—there has been a surfeit of C&W/good ol' boy themes in fiction and movies lately. The smirking shade of John Travolta's urban cowboy seems to hover over most of Cadillac Jack's mild adventures, though Travolta would be far too young to play in the film version. Even Willie Nelson—and this gets closer to the area of McMurtry'...

[All My Friends] focuses almost exclusively on sex for the first few chapters, then dwindles for a long stretch into life and literature, as if even McMurtry had grown fatigued by coition, but finally returns determinedly but tragically to the sexual theme when the hero Danny Deck, having discovered that the girl with "the clearest eyes, the straightest look, the most honest face" of all the girls won't—or maybe the word is can't—have him decides to commit suicide&#...

In the review below, Ronald, a professor at the University of Nevada, argues that Texasville does not measure up to earlier novels in the series such as The Last Picture Show.

Somebody's Darling employs some of the conventions of aesthetic realism and employs them well; the characters are rounded and believable and the story line involving…. A complex narration, similar to that of The Sound and the Fury, interestingly complicates plot and characters by showing them through overlapping and frequently contradictory lenses. (p. 181)

The principal trouble with Larry McMurtry's [Moving On] … is that it is about 500 pages too long. His characters are too amiable and ordinary, his action is too slight, his psychology is too shallow, and his incidents are just too damn normal to justify the incredibly extended treatment he has given them. There is simply not enough material here to cover the ground, and the result is a book that is fidgety, diffuse, and keenly disappointing. From a summer in the rodeo circuit to a year in grad...

[In Somebody's Darling, an] arresting, kindly and wry novel about love, hope and fame, Larry McMurtry manages to be funny as he slouches through Hollywood without ever becoming cruel, cynical or mean-spirited. There is something about everyone here—and something for everyone who has ever felt longing…. McMurtry is a writer's writer, and most of the real readers in America have read one or more of his books, Horseman, Pass By; All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers; The Last Pic...

Like most "antique" collections, Larry McMurtry's eighth novel [Cadillac Jack] is actually two or three valuables and a whole lot of junk. This is especially disappointing because McMurtry is too good a novelist … to believe that dozens of one-dimensional albeit eccentric characters, a protagonist who exists only to concatenate these eccentrics, and a theme and plot that remain forever incipient constitute literary art. Cadillac Jack McGriff, antique scout extraordinaire, has a r...

McMurtry's point of view [in Somebody's Darling], in detailing dozens of brightly drawn, often scary characters, ranges from acerbic satire to bitter horror; the weakest section, the middle one, by the producer, is as coarse, shallow, and foul-mouthed as its narrator. McMurtry really tells us nothing new about Hollywood—that the purveyors of fantasies are mostly low-spirited, corrupt, and earthbound—but the novel is engrossing, if never as moving as it is knowingly shocking. (p. ...

By his own account, Cadillac Jack McGriff, 6 feet 5 inches of Texas manhood without his boots or Stetson, 35 years old and twice divorced, is a natural scout and a natural womanizer. Having done a stint as a bulldogger on the rodeo circuit, he retired to roam the country in his big pearl-colored Caddy with peach velour interior. He now spends his days scouting—exploring back roads for antiques and collectibles, buying and selling what strikes his fancy, "too curious, too restless, too much in ...

McMurtry's down-home fictions have always been juiced up with side-orders of raunchy charm and beer-barrel comedy—but this time [in Cadillac Jack] he tries, with middling results, to make an entire novel out of such enticing (yet ultimately wearying) trimmings. Narrator-hero "Cadillac Jack" McGriff is a onetime rodeo bulldogger who now travels the country, in his pearly Cadillac, as a super-duper dealer/scout—picking up antiques and other collectibles (e.g., a load of gem-...

[Cadillac Jack, a] rambling drifter of a man—an antiques spotter who travels the country searching for collectible treasures and who acts as a middleman between seller and dealer—can't quite find the key to his own life. What Jack does find is himself in love with two women, and he's unable or unwilling to choose between them. While the plot often seems to be going nowhere at half-speed, McMurtry injects some marvelously comic poignancy into Jack's purposeless meanderings ...