KIRKUS REVIEWPulitzer Prize winner McMurtry (Dead Man's Walk, 1995, etc.) and his collaborator on Pretty Boy Floyd (1994) attempt to bestow mythic stature on a maverick American Indian in this for-want-of-a-nail yarn set in 1870s Oklahoma. A half-breed member of the Cherokee Nation, Zeke Proctor is a hard-drinking, happy-go-lucky smallholder. Although married and the father of five, he is surreptitiously bedding the local miller's wife. When her aggrieved husband, a white man, takes revenge by shoveling weevils into Zeke's ground corn, the Civil War vet accidentally shoots and kills his paramour while gunning for the cuckold. Afraid of being hauled before a white judge and swiftly condemned, Zeke takes shelter with his Cherokee son-in-law Ned Christie, claiming the right to be judged by his own people. On the day of his trial in an Indian tribunal, the departed's vindictive brothers precipitate a massacre that leaves 12 more dead. Acquitted in a sham proceeding, Zeke is eventually granted amnesty by President Ulysses S. Grant. By contrast, Ned (unjustly blamed by white officials for the courthouse bloodbath and subsequent murder of a federal marshal) is forced to take to the hills. At the cost of an eye and his young wife's unborn child, he repulses the first posse sent to bring him in. After this violent, embittering brush with the law, the wanted man takes a warrior's vow, refuses to speak English, and digs in for a long siege. Ned holds out for years until a crew of outlaws with badges manages to blast him from his mountain redoubt, albeit not before he becomes an immortal legend among his fatalistic people and in the wider world. A mock-heroic tale of culture shock and sudden death along our westering frontier in which the principals (whether red or white) are portrayed as simple-minded primitives."My favorite by McMurtry
I wanted to like this story. I really did. But the writing doesn't sit well with me and I don't know if it's the way the author is telling the story or if it is the narrator of the audiobook. Either way I've decided to eject it. I can't get into it and I have too many books waiting to be listened to/read to keep trudging through this one. Apparently a lot of people enjoyed the book so perhaps reading a paper version would change the pace and tone of the book (which right now is painfully slow and boring and predictable). I'm also not crazy about when authors take a historical figure and make up crazy crap out of no where (like Ned was not married to Zeke's daughter!). Too many idiots out there read this and think there's truth in it. There's very little truth in it and it isn't meant to be biographical but after reading some of the reviews on GR before writing mine I'm discouraged by the lack of intellect in the reviewers. One person even got Ned's last name wrong. The same person also said it took place in Appalachia. Hate to break it to you genius but Oklahoma is *not* Appalachia. Seriously. Did that girl even read the book? I wish GR had a way to flag a review for being just plain wrong. Or stupid. Anyway, moving on to another book now...
What do You think about Zeke And Ned (2002)?
Ahhh, now here's another book that I just could NOT get into. I think I was totally spoiled by Lonesome Dove. None of the other McMurtry books I've read since have really 'done' it for me. I think I want them to be like Lonesome Dove ... and they're just not. In fact, a few were downright awful.This wasn't awful - I just couldn't get much interested in the characters. Back hills hicks just don't float my boat, I guess. I made it about 1/4 of the way through, and decided to terminate it. I have so many other books stacked up to read that I didn't want to waste more time plowing through something that just didn't interest me.
—Bob Corrigan
As with a number of other reviewers, surprisingly, I did NOT like this book to start out with. I found it slow and prodding and dull, and I was annoyed that I had ever purchased it. I wondered if I might have to sell it to get rid of it, but reasoned that as I had bought it in a bag of books with the whole bag costing something like $5, I hadn't lost out much.Then the book got better. A lot better. I've seen other reviewers saying that they couldn't get into the book because they couldn't grow a
—Devon
Larry McMurtry is my new discovery. For years I've looked at his many books on the shelves of bookstores with their pictures of cowboys on the covers and passed them over thinking that someone who wrote so many books and so many popular ones could not have written them well. I know. I'm ashamed to have thought this way. But with age sometimes comes wisdom and better yet humility. This is my second McMurtry book and the thought of all those other of his books of his yet to read fills me with hope. I'll get through many long winter days, many commutes to and from work, with his stories keeping me happy. Zeke and Ned is part yarn, part history, part memoir of two Cherokee men living in the territory assigned to them by the U.S. government. A very realistic western that reads as if you're sitting by a fire on a starry night and an old man is telling you a story. The style of writing is unique. As someone who loves to write and wants to do it carefully and well, I am learning so much from Larry McMurtry's books
—Francisco
