Recommendations
Books Like All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers by Larry McMurtry
For readers of the most autobiographical McMurtry
If you loved All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers — Danny Deck's inability to stay, his drive across Texas and California, his destruction of his second manuscript in the Rio Grande, the loneliness of early literary success — these novels share the same territory: young writers, the American road, and men who move because they cannot be still.
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Buy on AmazonSome Can Whistle
by Larry McMurtry
McMurtry's sequel — Danny Deck twenty years later, rich and isolated on his Texas ranch, his daughter's first phone call; the essential continuation for seeing what Danny Deck became after the events of All My Friends.
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Buy on AmazonMoving On
by Larry McMurtry
The first Houston trilogy novel — shares some characters with All My Friends and establishes the Houston world Danny inhabits; the comprehensive portrait of the academic world Danny is escaping.
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Buy on AmazonTerms of Endearment
by Larry McMurtry
The third Houston trilogy novel — the companion in McMurtry's domestic fiction; Aurora Greenway's Houston world is the female, domestic version of the world Danny Deck is fleeing in All My Friends.
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Buy on AmazonOn the Road
by Jack Kerouac
Kerouac's defining road novel — the Beat companion in American fiction about the young man who cannot stop moving; Sal Paradise's drives across America are the earlier, more famous version of Danny Deck's Texas drives; both novels are about men who move because standing still is impossible.
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Buy on AmazonThe Sportswriter
by Richard Ford
Ford's novel about a former novelist turned sportswriter — Frank Bascombe is the companion character to Danny Deck; both were supposed to write great novels and found they could not, and both manage the resulting emptiness by throwing themselves into something else.
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Buy on AmazonLonesome Dove
by Larry McMurtry
McMurtry's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece — the companion in his full range; where All My Friends is the autobiographical, restless mode, Lonesome Dove is the epic, adventurous mode; both are fundamentally about men who cannot stop moving.
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Buy on AmazonHumboldt's Gift
by Saul Bellow
Bellow's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel — the companion in the tradition of the American writer thinking about fame, money, and what literary success actually means; Charlie Citrine's meditation is the more philosophical, older-writer version of what Danny Deck is going through.
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Buy on AmazonHousekeeping
by Marilynne Robinson
Robinson's debut novel about two sisters in Idaho in the care of their transient aunt Sylvie — the companion in American fiction about the person who cannot stay; Sylvie's transience is the female, Northwestern version of what Danny Deck is — the person for whom home is always already somewhere else.
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