Crazy Horse

Starred review from January 4, 1999
Deceptively brief and seemingly lightweight, this wonderful work effectively cuts through decades of hyperbole. McMurtry illuminates the enigma and the myth of Crazy Horse to present him as a man--no more, no less. He has stripped away the incessant Noble Savage image that persists in many serious works about Native Americans, even to this day. He gently jabs earlier biographers who based entire volumes on little or no evidence of the events in Crazy Horse's life. "Still I am not writing this book because I think I know what Crazy Horse did--much less what he thought--on more than a few occasions in his life; I'm writing it because I have some notions about what he meant to his people in his lifetime, and also what he has come to mean to generations of Sioux in our century and even our time." McMurtry's simple, eloquent prose conveys Plains Indian culture far better than most anthropological efforts, leaving the reader with a clear, dignified image of the great warrior (who died in 1877) without needless conjectures of day-by-day activities. Although complicated by the politics of money and land, this is, as McMurtry ultimately shows, the story of a man "who had no politics, just the conviction that he wanted to live his life in accordance with the precepts of his own people." First serial to American Heritage; BOMC alternate. (Jan.) FYI: Viking plans to release two Penguin Lives titles each season, six each year. This volume, along with Edmund White's biography of Proust (see p. 62), is the first.

September 15, 1998
McMurtry tackles the life of Native American legend Crazy Horse.

January 1, 1999
The publisher has lined up an impressive list of writers to provide digestible biographical sketches of a variety of historically and culturally significant authors, politicians, military leaders, religious figures, scientists, and artists. Best-selling novelist and history buff Larry McMurtry helps launch the Penguin Lives series with an elegantly styled tribute to enigmatic Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. Though essentially a loner and devoid of political ambition, Crazy Horse was a respected military tactician, equally feared and admired for the strength and the intensity of his convictions. Rather than merely attempting to sort out fact from fiction, McMurtry incorporates conjecture and legend into this philosophical portrait of both the man and the myth. Titles to follow in this promising and original new series include Edmund White on Marcel Proust, Jane Smiley on Charles Dickens, Garry Wills on St. Augustine, Carol Shields on Jane Austen, and Marshall Frady on Martin Luther King Jr. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)

January 4, 1999
McMurtry's historical biography of Crazy Horse, the Sioux warrior who was a leader at the Battle of Little Big Horn, is one of two initial audio releases in the new Penguin Lives series. (The other is Marcel Proust by Edmund White, read by Barbara Rosenblatt). In each, an accomplished novelist tackles the short-form biography as a literary challenge (note: as audio programs, these are only "slightly" abridged). For McMurtry, this means reexamining the American Old West, the territory of his epic, multivolume fiction adventures (Lonesome Dove, etc.). Noting that almost nothing that Crazy Horse said was ever recorded, McMurtry relies on the historical record, interviews with elderly Sioux conducted early in this century and on his own thoughtful analysis of the general mood of the times. As audio, it's this sense of the author's fresh curiosity that keeps the program interesting. Actor Conger performs his narration in subdued tones, which respectfully reflect the academic spirit of McMurtry's project. Simultaneous release with the Viking hardcover.

Starred review from November 15, 1998
The new "Penguin Lives" series gives contemporary writers the chance to offer succinct biographies of well-known and significant figures in whom they are especially interested. Since so very little is known with any certainty about the Sioux warrior-leader Crazy Horse, he hardly seems the ideal figure with whom to start. Nevertheless, novelist McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, LJ 5/1/89) overcomes this handicap by constructing a thoughtful discussion of Sioux culture around the known facts to show how Crazy Horse was shaped by his society and how he reacted to its destruction as whites spread onto the Great Plains. Given the paucity of sources, McMurtry is careful to keep his own guesswork to a minimum, and he is critical of previous writers for going beyond what he thinks justified. This brief and well-written introduction to Sioux culture and the enigmatic Crazy Horse is recommended for school and public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/98.]--Stephen H. Peters, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette