Ranch raised Larry McMurtry was the best known, and perhaps the greatest, of what we might regard as Texas centric writers. Unlike some of the other really well known ones, he actually was from rural Texas and lived his live in Texas.
McMurtry didn't live in a house that contained books until he was 8 years old, at which time a cousin who was leaving for military service in World War Two dropped off a box of books. He became an avid reader at that age and was a dedicated bibliophile. His family's ranch was near Archer City, Texas, and that's where he died. A major antiquarian bookstore owned by him is located in the small town.
McMurtry will be best remembered for Lonesome Dove, which may be the greatest Western novel of all time, perhaps rivaled only by the much shorter and much less epic, The Virginian. His greatest book, however, in my view, is Horseman, Pass By! which chronicled a contemporary ranch family with an accuracy only somebody who had grown up on a ranch could do.
Several of his works were made into well known films, of course, notably Horseman Pass By, which was released in the film version as Hud, The Last Picture Show (which I don't like) and Lonesome Dove. He was 84 years old. He's a notable example of very successfully "writing what you know".
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