A stunning literary debut, Horseman, Pass By (1961) exhibits the
"full-blooded Western genius" (Publishers Weekly) that would come to
define McMurtry's incomparable sensibility. In the dusty north Texas
town of Thalia, young Lonnie Bannon quietly endures the pangs of
maturity as a persistent rivalry between his grandfather and step-uncle,
Hud, festers, and a deadly disease spreads among their cattle like
wildfire.