Michael Stevens' "Just Larry" (2022/2026)

Spicewood, Texas, US: Suicide Press (book, bibliography, memoir), 2022/2026.
8" x 5.25" x 0.75", 295 pages, softcover, ISBN 979-8-218-84662-6.

Just Larry: Unpacking My Larry McMurtry Collection, a combination bibliography/listing and memoir by Michael Stevens, as published by Suicide Press (Spicewood, Texas, US) in 2026. This follows the 2022 edition published by Planned Obsolescence Press. As noted on the back cover, this "is a collection of reminiscences and recollections interspersed with biographical fragments all pertaining to author, bookseller, and screenwriter Larry McMurtry. Presented in the form of a bibliography, it is part memoir, part receipt-book, part bibliography, and part author's library."

This book contains multiple references to Burroughs and his works, including a text by Burroughs from Robert Wilson's Phoenix Book Shop guest book. Burroughs references may be found in this book at the following spots:

• introduction: in discussion of Stevens' collections and his book A Distant Book Lifted
• p. 3, in a listing for William S. Burroughs: Tony Shafrazi Gallery December 19 Through January 24, 1988
• p. 4, for The Yage Letters (with Allen Ginsberg, City Lights, 1978)
• p. 5, on Burroughs' commentary on Neal Cassady, in On the Bus: The Complete Guide to the Legendary Trip of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and the Birth of the Counterculture (Thunder's Mouth Press, 1996)
• pp. 10-11, in discussion of Robert A. Wilson's Seeing Shelley Plain. Memories of New York's Legendary Phoenix Book Shop, including a text by Burroughs left in the Phoenix guestbook
• p. 27, for Dead Fingers Talk (Tandem, 1966) and The Naked Lunch (Olympia, 1959)
• pp. 72-74, for Terry Southern's Flash and Filigree (Grove Press, 2019), mentioning the Burroughs blurb
• pp. 74-75, in discussion on Richard Miller's Sowboy, and the Burroughs blurb for Snail
• p. 75, in discussion on Richard Miller's Seaville: A Bluewater Adventure and Tanglefoot, both of which have blurbs by Burroughs for Snail
• p. 76, within discussion on Larry McMurtry's Moving On, reproducing a letter that the character Patsy writes, which mentions Burroughs, and another mention of Burroughs within Larry McMurtry's Walter Benjamin and the Dairy Queen
• pp. 77-78, in discussion on Ken Babbs' Spit in the Ocean, issue 6 ("The Neal Cassady Issue"), 1981. This reproduces Burroughs' contribution to the issue, a short essay on Neal Cassady
• p. 80, on an unproduced screenplay by Larry McMurtry on Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, owned formerly by Burroughs and sold in Sotheby's Allen Ginsberg and Friends auction in 1999
• pp. 83-85, for Naked Lunch (Grove Press, 1962)
• pp. 85-87, for Nova Express (Grove Press, 1964)
• p. 87, for The Soft Machine (Grove Press, 1966)
• pp. 87-88, for The Ticket That Exploded (Grove Press, 1967)
• p. 93, for Michael Stevens' A Distant Book Lifted: A Bibliography of Forewords, Introductions, Afterwords, Blurbs, and Other William S. Burroughs Miscellany (Benjamin Spooner Books, 2001)
• pp. 96-98, for Michael Stevens' The Road to Interzone: Reading William S. Burroughs Reading (suicide press, 2009)
• p. 98, for Barry Miles' Call Me Burroughs: A Life (Twelve Press, 2015)
• pp. 98-100, in discussion of Herbert Gold's Bohemia: Where Art, Angst, Love, and Strong Coffee Meet (Axios Press, 2007), including a retelling of a story about Burroughs that McMurtry told Stevens
• pp. 100-102, in discussion of Larry McMurtry's All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers (Pocket Books, 1973), including a retelling of one of McMurtry's encounters with Burroughs
• pp. 102-103, for Michael Stevens' The Road to Interzone: Reading William S. Burroughs Reading (suicide press, 2010)
• p. 103, in discussion of W. B. Yeats' "Under Ben Bulben" in The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (Macmillan, 1962)
• p. 104, in discussion of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady's As Ever: The Collected Correspondence of Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady, noting that Burroughs had some responsibility for the title
• pp. 107-134 include books purchased at Booked Up, Larry McMurtry's bookstore, many of which either contain Burroughs relation, or are listed in The Road to Interzone: Reading William S. Burroughs Reading
• pp. 184 for books by Burroughs that were in the Library of Larry McMurtry
• p. 291-292 in the epilogue, within discussion on The Poetry Project Newsletter, issue 104, 1984
• p. 292 for Cities of the Red Night (Holt Rinehart Winston, 1981),  Port of Saints (slipcased edition, Blue Wind Press, 1980), The Western Lands (Viking, 1987), and Michael Stevens' The Road to Interzone: Reading William S. Burroughs Reading (suicide press, 2025)
• p. 295 reproduces part of a Brion Gysin image of Burroughs with some short comments.

Contents: 

• Larry McMurtry: frontispiece, letter
• Michael Stevens: "Just Larry":
• "Introduction: no books where none intended"
• "Part One: Talismanic McMurtriana & Non-McMurtry McMurtriana"
• "Part Two: Booked Up"
• "Part Three: Original, Arresting, Vivid, and Funny (a distant book lifted for Larry): Blurbs, Forewords, Introductions, and Commentary"
• "Part Four: Bibliography of the Works of Larry McMurtry"
• "Part Five: Selections from the Library of Larry McMurtry"
• "Epilogue 2023/2024/2025: 'To greet the return of the Gods'"