Telegraph Days
by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster, $25)

Telegraph Days provides a perfect stage for Virginian Nellie Courtright and her hapless brother, Jackson. The only survivors from a family of 10 who perished during their westward journey, brother and sister seem destined to a dismal existence. Through Nellie's eyes, the reader meets the Earps (mostly drunkards and ne'er-do-wells, including the famous Wyatt), Billy the Kid, and Buffalo Bill Cody. But no man and no town truly capture Nellie's adventurous spirit. "I hope you don't want more from life than there is," warns Nellie's sister-in-law, Mandy. But Nellie does want more, just as Larry McMurtry has given the reader more with a strong female character that you'll no doubt see in a theater soon. --Wanda McKinney