By Leslie Lang
My daughter, who just graduated from college, was 4 years old the first time I read the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel
Lonesome Dove. I remember finishing it and clasping it to my chest.
“That was such a great book,” I told her. “You should read it one day.”
“I will, Mama,” she promised with great fervor.
I just reread it, and I loved it again. What an incredible book. Larry McMurtry puts you right there on that still, dusty porch near the Rio Grande with the pigs and Gus McCrae and not much else. That seems hard enough, but then they decide to drive their couple of thousand (stolen) cows up to Montana, a truly harrowing journey.
It’s a great read with amazing characters, but that book whacked any romanticism about the Old West right out of me.
After I finished, more than one person asked whether I’d watched Yellowstone, a TV series about a modern-day ranching family. I hadn’t, and just started watching its prequel, 1883, which is about how the family first made its way to Montana.
It’s put me right back in the same rough world as Lonesome Dove. I keep expecting Sam Elliott’s character to run into Gus McCrae from the Hat Creek Cattle Company.
It also confirmed what I realized while reading Lonesome Dove: I would never, ever have made it in the Wild West.
Leslie-of-the-covered-wagon would have been a complete wreck. I can’t impress upon you enough how stressed out I would have been when riders came galloping over the horizon, guns and arrows drawn. There was danger everywhere, and it’s made me appreciate my good life.
I have a lovely and comfortable home office where two orange cats snooze on the desk next to me. I’ve built a writing business and lifestyle I genuinely enjoy. It can be a puzzle to put all the pieces of a content package or journalistic article together just right, but it’s the kind of puzzle I know how to solve, and enjoy.
When I want a break, I wander into the kitchen where there’s good coffee and fresh tropical fruit right off a tree. Birds sing just outside my windows.
Nobody, least of all me, would say we don’t have our problems today. But I am so very grateful they don’t involve trying to survive the Wild West.
What did you think of Lonesome Dove or Yellowstone? (I just started watching, so no spoilers!) I love to talk books and movies, so if you do too, let me know.
And if you’re a content editor looking for experienced freelance writers, I’d love to talk about that, as well. I recently teamed up with three talented writer friends to create Your Writers Bench, a group of experienced freelancers that cover B2B technology, healthcare, education, finance, travel, agriculture, and more.
We created Your Writers Bench to make it easier for editors and content teams to find an experienced, dependable writer when they need one.
Check us out. Link in the first comment.
This article first appeared as a LinkedIn post from Your Writers Bench.