Larry McMurtry, a prolific novelist and screenwriter who demythologized the American West with his unromantic depictions of life on the 19th-century frontier and in contemporary small-town Texas, died on Thursday. He was 84.
Over more than five decades, Mr. McMurtry wrote more than 30 novels and many books of essays, memoir and history. He also wrote more than 30 screenplays, including the one for Brokeback Mountain (written with his longtime collaborator Diana Ossana, based on a short story by Annie Proulx), for which he won an Academy Award in 2006.
