An almost-true story about a small town in Texas that ought to exist if it doesn't, with characters like Sam the Lion, the delectable Jacy, and Ruth Popper, the coach's wife.

"Attempting to escape his abusive father and generations of cyclical poverty, young Jonah Hargrove joins the mysterious River--a teenage girl carrying thousands of dollars in stolen meth--and embarks on a southern gothic odyssey through the East Texas river bottoms. They are pursued by local drug kingpin John Curtis and his murderous enforcer, Dakota Cade, with whom River was romantically involved. But Cade and Curtis have their own enemies, as their...

Larry McMurtry burst onto the American literary scene with a force that would forever redefine how we perceive the American West. His first three novels-- Horseman, Pass By (1961),* Leaving Cheyenne (1963), and The Last Picture Show (1966)-- all set in the north Texas town of Thalia after World War II, are collected here for the first time. In this trilogy, McMurtry writes tragically of men and women trying to carve out an existence on the plains,...