"NOUVEAU RICHE ONLY A FEW MONTHS EARLIER, NOW NOUVEAU BANKRUPT": FIRST EDITION OF TEXASVILLE, INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY LARRY MCMURTRY

MCMURTRY, Larry. Texasville. New York: Simon and Schuster, (1987). Octavo, original half blue cloth, original dust jacket. $750.

First edition of McMurtry's sequel to The Last Picture Show, returning readers to the small town of Thalia in the aftermath of the 1980s oil boom, boldly inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "To Carlyle, a look at my old hometown, Larry McMurtry."

The Pulitzer Prize-wining writer's sequel to his third novel, The Last Picture Show (1966), "shows off the author at his popular storytelling best, and it attests, again, to his sure feeling for people and place… A wonderfully digestible book that leaves a lingering cloud of sadness in the reader's mind" (New York Times). The recipient, Carlyle Strickland, was a basketball all-star at Howard Payne University, an instructor at the University of Texas at Arlington and a personal friend of both McMurtry and Peter Bogdanovich, director of the Texasville movie as well as author of the screenplay. Bogdanovich cited Strickland (alongside McMurtry) in the foreword to his book The Killing of the Unicorn as one of several people "who, though they had little to do with the making of this book, nevertheless made considerable contributions—in very different ways—toward keeping me going over the three years of its writing; I will always be thankful for their friendship." Annotation on the colophon and one page (15) of text.

Book clean and fresh, dust jacket showing slight edge wear and toning to flaps with two small scrapes to back panel. A near-fine signed copy with an interesting inscription.