Mary Cummins writes:

>Larry McMurtry ("Last Picture Show", "Terms of Endearment", "Lonesome Dove")
>was our guest speaker/honoree.  As chairperson, I sat with Larry and told
him that one of the things I liked about his books was that "he wrote about
BF as though it were actually a normal part of life".  He gave me a little
smile that told me he understood exactly what I meant.

I was surprised to read this, as I remember clearly from the TV adaptation
of "Streets of Laredo" (which I realize McMurtry may have had no input into
or control over) the parents have a child about 10 months old who sleeps in
a cradle in their room.  In one scene, they all wake up and the baby starts
to cry and the father gets up and gets the baby and starts to hand it to the
mother, who is sitting up in bed, and I'm thinking "Great!  We're going to
see a baby breastfeeding".  But instead the mother says "I think the baby is
hungry, take her out to the kitchen and give her some breakfast."  Later,
when the mother decides to track down her husband (who is out hunting
bandits with Cap'n Call) she sends all her children, including the baby, on
a train to Nebraska.  And in one scene the older sister is shown giving the
baby the corner of a dirty handerchief to suck on.  Yuck.  Very unrealistic,
given the time and place (frontier Texas).


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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email: [log in to unmask]
Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352