Story and Photos by Austin Keith
As the son of a bull-rider, I grew up on a healthy diet of Western literature, film, art, and rodeo arenas. Despite my early requests for Berenstain Bear books, my father read Lonesome Dove as a bedtime story because, he insisted, “no talking bear will teach you a damn thing about real life.”
My mother wasn’t much of a reader, but a VHS copy of the film adaptation of Larry’s Terms of Endearment was on a constant loop in our house. While my young mind didn’t fully grasp it at the time, I now realize Larry left an indelible mark on me: every thought, every belief, every feeling I have about Texas has been shaped through the prism of Larry’s prose.
**
In the summer of 2011, a small group of writers and I had the opportunity to meet Larry. As a grad student at the University of North Texas, my professor, George Getschow, who became a close friend of Larry’s, would bring his most promising students to Archer City. George’s writing workshop in Larry’s hometown was the only class I cared about.
“Why are you here?!” George shouted from the back of a pickup truck.
It was our first night in town, and he wasted no time putting us on the spot. One by one, each of us climbed into the back of the truck and gave our moonlit confession. Some were harrowing, while others evoked a drunk chuckle or chatter from the crowd. George wanted to know if we had what it took to be good writers—could we be vulnerable enough to be honest with ourselves?
As a wide-eyed twenty-five-year-old, I approached life with a deliberate sense of cautiousness. Growing up, life was anything but stable. My mother, who suffered severe psychiatric issues, regularly bounced between jail, rehab, and mental hospitals. When she was home, there was no acknowledgment of what she put us through. My father couldn’t deal with the reality. As a result, I was never allowed to express my true thoughts and feelings, so climbing into the back of that truck was cathartic.
“Writing is the only thing that makes sense,” I yelled out into the stars. “I’m tired of hiding from the chaos.”
When I arrived in Archer City, I hoped to find answers from Larry (who I envisioned to be some wise, cowboy deity) as he captured the loneliness I felt in my life. Yet, what I found was a man trying to live a literary life. One of the most acclaimed writers to come out of Texas, Larry reminded me of my grandpa. Most days, Larry wore the same pair of overalls, and spoke as plainly as any local cowboy through a clenched jaw. I was in awe of Larry—he moved with a sense of purpose most couldn’t see. Every action for him had deep meaning.
“How do you do it?” I asked him while we ate chicken-fried steak sandwiches at the Wildcat Cafe (now Murn’s). “Your books are heartbreaking, but you’re happy—I don’t even know what that looks like for myself.”
“Writing is an act of doing,” he responded after a long pause. “Life is hard if you’re not prepared, but it’s not like you choose between living or writing. No matter how I feel, I write every day.”
For Larry, writing was a means to nurture his love of books. As Larry’s fame as a writer book collector grew, he dreamed of transforming Archer City from “a bookless town in a bookless part of the state” into a thriving literary mecca. At the time, Booked Up was comprised of more than a half a million books, spread across four storefronts in a town of roughly 1,600 people. As a way to inspire creativity, he left all the stores unlocked with the hope we’d spend time combing through the shelves and live up to his challenge of “standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Those giants, those legendary penmen and women spoke to me while I wandered through towering bookshelves in the middle of the night: Do what I’ve done. Do what Larry has done. Tell stories that matter.
That summer changed me. Even after I moved to the furthest stretches of the Pacific Northwest to escape the chaos back home, I clung to the cherished memories of my time in Archer City.
**
When Larry died on March 25, 2021, the world I longed to be part of suddenly felt unhinged, like a tsunami had severed me from my literary hopes and aspirations. To cope, I read Horseman Pass By, my favorite book, because it reminds me that good things don’t always last. Just as the central character, Lonnie, watched as his grandfather’s ranching life was being pushed aside in favor of easy money in the post-war oil boom, I realized the people and traditions that make a place feel like home won’t always be there to welcome you back.
Soon after his passing, Larry’s last two bookstores in Archer City, Booked Up No. 1 and Booked Up No. 2 closed—shuttering one of Larry’s greatest achievements: creating the only booktown in America.
**
On February 1, 2025, I awoke to a message from my past.
“Join me in Archer City, Texas in March for an intensive four-day workshop under the auspices of the Larry McMurtry Literary Center and Archer City Writer’s Workshop.”
I was shocked by the invitation: this was an opportunity to return to Larry’s hometown in Archer City. Six months after Larry died, my younger brother passed. Six months after that, my dad followed. Mom’s issues finally broke our family. I was the only survivor. After downing a cup of coffee to clear the haze of whiskey and grief from the night before, I decided to respond. It wasn’t long before I was back in contact with my old mentor, George. He still remembered me after all those years.
“We purchased Larry’s bookstore, and some volunteers and I are turning it into a literary center,” George said over the phone. “You should come out and see Larry’s Temple of Books.”
It didn’t take much to convince me. When I arrived a month later, Archer City changed from the last time I was there. The four buildings that once housed Larry’s colossal collection of books were now occupied by a variety of local businesses. Thankfully, the magnetism of Archer City was still intact. After spending ten years in the Pacific Northwest, I felt like Odysseus, wandering the Mediterranean—I had been called back to my literary home. It was surreal to return in the wake of the grand opening of the Larry McMurtry Literary Center.
As I walked through the aisles of endless books once again, George’s question from 2011 kept running through my mind: why was I here?
Then I saw Rachel, my version of Odysseus’s Penelope.
Before I even spoke to her, I was drawn to the depth of Rachel’s presence. Even as the discussions meandered between the LMLC and our writing workshop, my attention kept shifting back to this beautiful, tall brunette excitedly carrying and sorting Larry’s antiquarian books across the store.
“Who is that?” I asked George while thumbing through first editions of Larry’s works.
“Oh, that’s Rachel. She is an incredibly gifted writer,” George responded without lifting his eyes from the books he was organizing. “She wrote an incredible narrative in Rolling Stone a few years back. She volunteers here.”
Looking back, I would have never believed I’d meet someone like her combing through dusty shelves of ancient books. I had to talk to her.
But I didn’t know how. Lost in my exile of grief, I didn’t think I had the ability to connect to someone like her. For years, I felt broken.
After leaving the bookstore, just as the sun was about to set, I trekked a few blocks back to The Spur Hotel (the only lodging in Archer City) hoping I would run into Rachel. As I settled into a spot on the porch, Rachel pulled up in her silver Hyundai SUV and started unloading her bags.
“Ma’am, can I give you a hand?” I called out into the darkness with a deep, resonant twang.
“No,” she said, flatly.
“Well, at least let me open the door for you,” I said while pulling on the handle.
What ensued was a clumsy tug of war with me holding the door open, while Rachel teeter-tottered under the weight of her overnight bags. My attempt at charm went down in flames.
“Damn,” I muttered to myself. “Reeeeal smooth.”
Soon, other folks from the LMLC arrived. Rachel came back outside and slipped into a conversation about the writing life while I sipped on a Coors Light.
“Do you like the Turnpike Troubadours?” I asked.
“Of course! Evan Felker is a great songwriter,” Rachel said.
Bingo! Trying to play it cool, I played a few more songs until “The Bird Hunters” blared triumphantly over the speakers.
“You know, Evan said this song was influenced by McMurtry,” I said.
Rachel’s smile brightened my spirits. My longing for Texas, ignited.
A few days later, the workshop ended and I was packing to fly home. I still wasn’t sure if Rachel was or wasn’t interested. Then, just as I was about to drive away, Rachel ran out to my truck to say goodbye. I didn’t bomb as bad as I thought.
Back in Seattle, I scoured the internet reading Rachel’s articles in Rolling Stone, Texas Monthly, and a variety of other publications. Her stellar prose deepened my feelings for her. From gay rodeos to the tragedy of a mass shooting, Rachel’s stories can break your heart or make you fall out of your chair laughing.
We exchanged emails and articles about Archer City, Larry’s reincarnated bookshop, and our shared love of writing. Our correspondence confirmed what I already knew: come hell or high water, I had to get back to Texas.
On April 4, 2025, I wrote George and told him I wanted to volunteer at the Larry McMurtry Literary Center. A couple days later, I arrived and George put me to work: sweeping floors, wiping dust and bugs off the books, and organizing a stash of car parts from the second-floor storeroom. Before Larry converted the building into a bookstore in 1987, it had been a Ford dealership for decades. On top of my passion for literature and writing, I’ve restored a number of classic cars.
While I excitedly catalogued the dusty car parts and books, I took note of how my passions in life coalesced in this small town at the southern edge of the Great American Plains.
After wiping away the dust and grit, I donated my father’s first edition of Lonesome Dove—the same one he read to me as a child, the same one Larry signed for me in 2011. After Dad passed, I clung to the book as it encapsulated our relationship. It also symbolized my aspirations of being a writer like Larry. That book is a piece of my soul. After witnessing the joy of other volunteers and countless visitors to the Larry McMurtry Literary Center, bringing Dad’s book home to Archer City was the best way I could honor him and Larry.
“I’m going to move back,” I told George as I handed him the book.
Rachel, who was busy reading personalized inscriptions of century-old books, looked up with a doubtful glance.
“Seriously?” she responded. “You’re just going to pack up and move just like that?”
“Sure!” I said. “Do you ever get a feeling about things? I’ve got a good feeling about this. It’s why I’m here.”
My clumsy courtship with Rachel budded into a deep romance. She and Archer City inspired my quest to live a literary life—in whatever form that takes. For Rachel and me, Archer City is our literary home and why we’ve dedicated ourselves to being torchbearers of Larry’s legacy.
Somewhere in the ether, I know my father is proud.
**
Each time we make the two-hour drive from our home in Dallas to Archer City, I think about that fateful 2025 email: “Join me in Archer City, Texas in March for an intensive four-day workshop under the auspices of the Larry McMurtry Literary Center and Archer City Writer’s Workshop.” If I hadn’t received that email or made the initial journey back to Archer City, I don’t know where I’d be.
Larry wrote about desperation and despair—of people trapped in some lonely existence, but he taught me despair and loneliness doesn’t have to be my life. His literature and his “temple of books” drew me back to Texas, back to his hometown and into the arms of the writer who is now my wife.
Rachel and I wanted to marry inside Booked Up, just as Larry did. But Larry’s old bookshop was in shambles at the time, so it didn’t work out. Today, as I sweep the floors and dust the shelves, I continue to muse about walking down the aisles of Larry’s towering bookshelves, Rachel in hand, and stopping for a few moments to exchange our vows and say, “I do.”
