Many of mine are already strangers, be it due to modern-day nomadism, rising political contrariety, or the inexorable consequences of time.
Larry McMurtry wrote All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers (1972) when he was about 35, only a few years older than I was at the time. I haven’t read much Western Literature, although I’ve enjoyed the works of writers such as Wallace Stegner, Phillip Meyer, Jim Harrison, Thomas McGuane, who have set some of their stories there. But when one thinks of old west fiction, writers such as Louis L'Amour, Larry McMurtry, and Zane Grey spring to mind. Being a northeast kind of guy, my taste in literature does not go there. My loss I suppose, but the alternative use of time justifies (in my mind) an excusable indifference.
Nonetheless when somewhere or someone – don’t remember who or where – recommended this McMurtry novel as a work to get to know him as a writer, not necessarily as a western writer, I put it on my list and when it arrived thought it would be the perfect book to take on our recent cruise.
I fondly remember Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show for which McMurtry wrote the screenplay based on his novel, it being filmed in his old home town. Between that and the title of the book itself, probably based on Merle Haggard’s - "(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers” I was prepared to enjoy this book. After all, friends, old lovers, peel away as one ages, and at a certain point one is flying solo.
All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers displays McMurtry’s gift of dialogue and self-deprecation (or at least resignation to circumstance), comically capturing what makes people uniquely weird and wonderful, full of fathomless eccentricities. All of this is seen through the eyes of Danny Deck, a writer in his early twenties whose peripatetic life makes up a solid Bildungsroman of a young writer’s journey and how life gets in the way of art. I jealously admired Danny’s ability to take advantage of youth without caring about consequences. It is about the ride, not the destination.
Danny goes through a marriage, other women, friends, enemies, beatings but along the way has his first novel published (although he doesn’t think much of it), and he gets enough money for a film based on it to live on. He’s flown to Hollywood to write the screenplay (naturally, he doesn’t have the foggiest idea of what to do, how to do it, carried along by fate). He seems to be on a ramp to oblivion and we leave him with his second novel in manuscript form, drowning it (and maybe himself?) in the Rio Grande River. Perhaps, it’s just one of the many rivers in Jim Harrison’s The River Swimmer
His writing is reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s ironic, dark sense of humor. Here Danny meets Leon, the Hollywood producer of the film to be made based on his novel in the backseat of Leon’s Bentley with Juney, Leon’s assistant/companion/enabler:
“Danny, I want you to know I think your novel’s great.” Leon said when we were shaking hands. He avoided my eye when he said it, and I avoided his. We almost looked at each other accidentally while we were avoiding each other’s eyes. I felt very embarrassed. I hadn’t gotten used to the fact that strangers out in the world had read my novel.
“I’m out here wasting my education,” Leon said a little later as we were purring out the Hollywood Freeway in the Bentley.
“I was brought up to believe that a gentleman does as little as possible with his education,” he said. “I think I’ve achieved pretty near the minimum. No one could expect me to do less than I’ve done.”
Juney looked at him tenderly and patted his hand. She was a motherly blonde. “Tough it out baby,” she said. Leon did not respond.
“Leon went to Harvard,” she said turning to me. “He operates from a very high level of taste. He really hates ostentation and affectation, but let’s face it in this industry you can’t escape it. You have to be ostentatious, you have to have affectations. Leon actually has to affect affectations. It’s a sad thing. This Bentley is one of the affectations he’s affecting. He doesn’t really want to drive a Bentley.”
Another of Leon’s affections is his pet twenty-two pound rat which he one bought for a science fiction movie he produced when it weighed five pounds less.
So I second the motion. To get to know Larry McMurtry, the writer, this is the book. You are sure to hear Merle Haggard singing…
From now on, all my friends are gonna be strangers
I'm all through ever trusting anyone
The only thing I can count on now is my fingers
I was a fool believing in you and now you are gone
