Archer City And Larry McMurtry’s Bookstores

 

 

Today with an old friend I journeyed up to Archer City, Texas. That is 25 miles south of Wichita Falls and is the hometown of Larry McMurtry. Major portions of the movie “The Last Picture Show” were made in Archer City, and the town has not changed very much since that movie was made. The movie theatre itself has burned, but it was a rock structure, and its wooden and steel façade is only partly burned. It is easily recognizable.

My particular interest in Archer City, however, revolved around the fact that Larry McMurtry had established four used book stores in the town that were interesting to me as a biblioaddict and a former owner of used bookstores myself. The four stores have the sign “Booked Up No. 1” through “Booked Up No. 4” in bold signs and are loaded from floor to 12-foot-high ceilings with used books of every sort and description but with no employees or attendants in sight. There was a sign on the front door of No. 4 which we entered first telling us that we were to make ourselves at home and that if we wished to buy a book to please take it by the No. 1 store to pay for it. The sign also told us that rest rooms were available in No. 3 store only. Since I had taken two diuretics before leaving Parker County this was information of some interest to me. However No.3 store was locked, and a sign said if we wanted in to go to store no. 1 to get a key. By this time it had become an academic matter and I went back to reading book titles and marked prices.

The volume of books and the variety of subject and title is staggering. We ended up going in only stores one and four but I would make a wild guess that there were 25,000 used books in those two stores arranged more or less haphazardly. It is a browser’s dream - except for the prices.

Generally speaking the prices seemed to me to be about four times as high as the same books at Half Price Books stores in Fort Worth and Dallas. I saw many, many books in the Texana and Western Literature section of store NO.1 which were $100 and $200 per book. I ended up buying only one book, because I felt that I could make the same amount of money go much farther in Dallas or Fort Wo0rth. That one book is “The Mysterious Mr. Shakespeare” by Charles Ogburn, upon which I primarily base my contention that the 17th Earl of Oxford, Edward de Vere, wrote the plays we ascribe to an almost illiterate actor named Will Shakespeare.

My daughter had asked that I get an author-signed copy of “Lonesome Dove” while in Archer City. I was informed by the No. 1 store clerk that Mr. McMurtry no longer signed copies of his books for patrons and no longer wished to meet them or talk to them. As the young lady said, “He is a very sensitive and shy man, you know, and he found interaction with the customers to be...well, you know.”

Yes, we knew.

We had lunch at another anomaly in this little west Texas town. We ate at the Archer City Tea House, which was delightful. For me grilled chicken breast with home canned (I can tell) green beans, perfectly cooked carrots and a cornbread dressing to die for. Tea or coffee to drink and my friend had a piece of coconut pie that he declared “out of this world”. Total tab: $14, including tip. The Tea House I would recommend heartily.

I don’t really mean to put Larry’s bookstores down. It is a rare sight to see that quantity of books. But yipes! He does seem proud of them. Visit Archer City some time.