''Leaving Cheyenne'' is the second novel written by author

Larry McMurtry Larry Jeff McMurtry (June 3, 1936March 25, 2021) was an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas.

. It was published in 1963. The novel portrays the lives of people living in Texas from about 1920 to about 1965. The book is written in three parts. Each is a first person account from the main characters involved in a life-long love triangle: Gideon, Johnny, and Molly.

Film adaptation

Film rights to the novel were purchased by Warner Bros in 1964. McMurtry says Warners wanted to call the film ''Gid'', after the lead character Gideon, to cash in on the success of the movie ''Hud'', based on McMurty's first novel, ''Horseman Pass By''. The writer recalls, "Something like seven scripts ensued, one of them done by Robert Altman, another of them nursed along for years by

Don Siegel Donald Siegel ( ; October 26, 1912 – April 20, 1991) was an American film and television director and producer. Siegel was described by ''The New York Times'' as "a director of tough, cynical and forthright action-adventure films whose taut ...

. Insidiously unfilmic, the book resisted all but the most foolhardy efforts to drag it onto celluloid, until, in 1974, it finally succumbed to the abundantly foolhardy efforts of Stephen Friedman and Sidney Lumet and appeared as '' Lovin' Molly''".

References

Western (genre) novels 1962 American novels American novels adapted into films Harper & Row books Novels set in Texas {{1960s-western-novel-stub