Finished: Leaving Cheyenne (McMurtry). A good, good book! I'm kind of on a McMurtry kick, I think. I might just read another one. :-) My brother was a big fan of McMurtry books, so almost all the McMurtry books I have are his books that I went and packed up after he died. I remember my brother telling me that McMurtry's books continued characters from book to book at times, and I'm seeing that now. It's just so very surreal to read books that belonged to my brother.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book! It's just a simple story about Gid (short for Gideon), Johnny and Molly...three "kids" (they're around 18 or 19 when we meet them) who are in each other's lives for over forty years. They live in north Texas, Gid on his father's nice ranch, Johnny as a cowhand working different ranches, and Molly on her father's small farm. Gid and Johnny are best friends, and are both in love with Molly, and Molly, in her own way, is in love with both of them. However, Molly is also crazy about oil-rigger, Eddie, and despite Gid asking her month after month, and year after year to marry him, she goes off and marries Eddie. Eddie is pretty much a low-life drunk, like Molly's own father, and he mistreats her terribly. However, she sticks with him. She doesn't give up sleeping with Johnny and Gid throughout the years. She decides first off that she wants to have a child by Gid while married to Eddie, so she does. And, then, she decides to have a child by Johnny while married to Eddie. Eddie is none the wiser, especially when he dies in an oil rig accident before the children (two boys) can get old enough to look like their biological fathers. In the meantime, Gid had gone ahead and married "the only other available girl in town", Mabel. He was so unhappy with her, but he'd never leave her to go and be happy with Molly. Nope...he just kept up his intimate relationship with Molly into his 40's.

I really liked Gid's father in the story. He was raising Gid alone since his mother died, and trying to instill in him the love for owning and operating the ranch and not just living off of cowhand wages like his best friend Johnny did. It was so sad when Gid's father died. :-( Anyway, Gid did learn to take responsibility for the ranch...after he and Johnny went off and had a few adventures in their younger years! One or the other of them always ended back up at Molly's after awhile after Eddie died.

The book itself is told in three parts. From Gid's point of view, we see the earlier courtship and young 20's years of the trio...all the way up to Molly marrying Eddie, Gid marrying Mabel, Johnny coming to work on Gid's ranch, Gid's father dying, and Molly becoming pregnant by Gid. Then, part two is told from Molly's point of view and they're all now in their 40's. Johnny and Gid practically take turns being with Molly...but the biggest news is that both of her sons, Jimmy, who is Gid's son and Joe, who is Johnny's son, have both been killed in "the war". It's so sad. :-( As teenagers, she'd told them both who their real fathers were, and Joe had taken it really well and had a good relationship with Johnny. However, Jimmy had hated her for it and would never have any kind of a relationship with Gid. He went off to the war never intending to come back even if he made it through. After Jimmy dies, Gid declares to Molly that it's wrong for them to be intimate how they've been all these years while he's married to Mabel (who doesn't really love Gib, nor he her) and he swears off that part of their relationship. I think his resolve lasts ten years. The third part of the book is narrated by the free-spirited Johnny who has now been working for Gid for nearly 40 years. They are in their late 60's by now and still going strong doing all the ranch work, and both just as stubborn as ever! They still both see Molly, and Gid is finally thinking of leaving Mabel for Molly, but one of the things holding him back is knowing that if he and Molly got to living together for real, then that would actually leave Johnny out of the picture. Anyway...it becomes a mute point when Gid slips fixing a windmill and dies of a blood clot.

The three have been so close for all these years that Molly and Johnny aren't sure what to do with themselves, but both spend time reminiscing and know that after all, life goes on. A good book and I could just hear the Texas twang whenever any of them spoke! :-)