All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers: A Novel
All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers: A Novel book cover

All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers: A Novel

Paperback – May 29, 2018

by
Price
$11.49
Format
Paperback
Pages
288
Publisher
Liveright
Publication Date
ISBN-13
978-1631493577
Dimensions
5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
Weight
9.2 ounces

Description

About the Author Larry McMurtry is an award-winning novelist, essayist, and avid bookseller and collector, who won an Academy Award for the screenplay of Brokeback Mountain with cowriter Diana Ossana. Awarded in 2014 the National Humanities Medal for his body of work, his novels include Lonesome Dove and, most recently, The Last Kind Words Saloon . He lives in Archer City, Texas.

Features & Highlights

  • A young writer hits the dusty Texas highway for the California coast in this “brilliant . . . funny and dangerously tender” (
  • Time
  • ) tale of art and sacrifice.
  • Hailed as one of “the best novels ever set in America’s fourth largest city” (Douglas Brinkley,
  • New York Times Book Review
  • ),
  • All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers
  • is a powerful demonstration of Larry McMurtry’s “comic genius, his ability to render a sense of landscape, and interior intellection tension” (Jim Harrison,
  • New York Times Book Review
  • ). Desperate to break from the “mundane happiness” of Houston, budding writer Danny Deck hops in his car, “El Chevy,” bound for the West Coast on a road trip filled with broken hearts and bleak realities of the artistic life. A cast of unforgettable characters joins the naive troubadour’s pilgrimage to California and back to Texas, including a cruel, long-legged beauty; an appealing screenwriter; a randy college professor; and a genuine if painfully “normal” friend. Since the novel’s publication in 1972, Danny Deck has “been far more successful at getting loved by readers than he ever was at getting loved by the women in his life” (McMurtry), a testament to the author’s incomparable talent for capturing the essential tragicomedy of the human experience.

Customer Reviews

Rating Breakdown

★★★★★
30%
(183)
★★★★
20%
(122)
★★★
15%
(92)
★★
7%
(43)
★
28%
(170)

Most Helpful Reviews

✓ Verified Purchase

One of the best books I have ever read.

I came here because I can find almost no discussion of this book online. I was a little surprised to find that many of the reviews on here are negative. Let me start by saying that, if you’re looking for a book with a suspenseful plot with unexpected turns (and there’s nothing wrong with looking for a book like that), you may not enjoy this book.

In my view, the true beauty of this book is in the main character‘s desire for an average American life, with a family who cares about him, and his coming to terms with the fact that he is not the type of person who can have that type of life. I think that many of the most painful parts of this book will be relatable to most people who have made it past their 20s.

I wouldn’t call this a “coming of age” story but, rather, a story about someone who knows what he wants but, because of his own intrinsic qualities, can’t have it. I can’t recommend this book enough!
2 people found this helpful
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He is the best for me

Stories that apply to life as it really is.
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Good read

Well written
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Great book

Couldn’t put the book down!
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A comic work that has an element of seriousness.

In All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers Larry McMurtry has written a comic novel that is also a serious commentary about place. Danny Deck is an undergraduate at Rice University when a novel he has written gets accepted for publication. He also gets married to Sally, a self-centered woman who ultimately does not love him. Danny leaves the university and begins a trek across country to San Francisco, Los Angeles and ultimately back to Texas. Along the way he has numerous affairs with women that end unsatisfactorily. The novel ends with Danny standing in the Rio Grande bemoaning his fate.

There are quite a few negative reviews for this book. I think it is because it is different from his more serious work and marks a transition from writing about Texas to a new phase in his writing career. I found the book to be enjoyable for its humor and Danny as a character worth caring about. I think readers will benefit from reading critical evaluations of the novel and not just relying on their own judgment to evaluate it.
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Language

Very raw language.
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Five Stars

one of mcmurtrys best

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