MixedBookforumStreitfeld occasionally shares a sweet personal remembrance of McMurtry ... These moments are a window on a different sort of book that Western Star might have been ... Instead, Streitfeld opted for a more traditional biography, albeit one that seems subtly colored by that friendship even when it isn’t addressed directly ... Streitfeld’s quest to tell McMurtry’s story once and for all turns out to be nearly as quixotic as Gus and Call’s trek to Montana ... Sometimes, Streitfeld seems to forget that the reader doesn’t already know McMurtry well, like he does ... Can sometimes feel like a conversation at a bar with a friend who lets their stories get away from them, arriving at the punch line before they finish the setup ... Streitfeld, a less industrious literary critic than Daugherty, occasionally quotes from user reviews on Goodreads and IMDb in lieu of his own analysis—a dispiriting habit, especially because he often hits the nail on the head when he makes his own attempts ... In the end, Streitfeld seems less interested in McMurtry’s prose than in the stories he told about himself.
