Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 16, 1994 TAG: 9410180008
SECTION: BOOK PAGE: F5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY NEIL HARVEY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Just before I started into "Pretty Boy Floyd," the new book by Larry McMurtry, I finished reading his previous novel, "Streets of Laredo," the sequel to his most well known work, "Lonesome Dove."
McMurtry is an author who likes extremes; his highs can border on slapstick absurdity and his lows plumb the depths of brutality and despair. "Streets of Laredo" is as engaging a book as I've read in a long time, but it's also merciless in its violence and its bleak drama, and after I finished I felt like I'd been beaten up. I wasn't sure if I wanted to delve back into similar material.
However, in the first scene of "Pretty Boy Floyd" (an armored car holdup in which two crooks lose each other in dense fog and a fleeing guard runs headlong into a lamppost) it becomes clear that this new book comes from the author's lighter side.
"Pretty Boy Floyd" concerns the nine-year period during which a naive, unintentionally charming Oklahoman named Charles Floyd rose to the rank of Public Enemy Number One, almost (but not quite) by accident.
Collaborating with screenwriter, Diana Ossana, McMurtry composed the novel by expanding a pre-existing script, and if "Pretty Boy Floyd" has a central weakness it's that the book's cinematic origins are all too obvious. Heavy on dialogue, briskly paced with sharp period detail, the story practically runs through the imagination in 35 millimeter.
It'll be a welcome change when McMurtry breaks out of his current pattern (either writing sequels to his earlier books or producing lighthearted period pieces) but after the bone-shattering, flesh-tearing bullets that flew in "Streets," it's kind of reassuring to kick back with "Pretty Boy Floyd," wherein everybody who gets shot simply gets really, really tired.
Neil Harvey lives in Blacksburg.
by CNB