ARCHER CITY, Tx., Aug 10 (Reuters) - Hipsters, booksellers
and fans from across the country converged on the town where
"The Last Picture Show" was filmed to buy a few books - or a
truckload - at "The Last Book Sale," writer Larry McMurtry's
once-in-a-lifetime auction.
McMurtry amassed 450,000 volumes in his used and rare book
business called Booked Up, whose four buildings dominate the
tiny municipality. At 76, the famed author said he decided to
sell 300,000 volumes at a two-day auction that concludes on
Saturday because they would be "a huge burden" for his heirs.
With the auction underway, McMurtry, who wrote "Terms of
Endearment," "The Last Picture Show" and more than 20 other
novels plus major screenplays such as "Brokeback Mountain" and
many works of nonfiction, said he's finished writing fiction.
"I think I had about 20 good years," said the winner of a
Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1986 for "Lonesome Dove." "Writers
don't get better as they get older, they get worse. Fifty is
usually the stopping point."
As the crowd gathered for the start of the auction on
Friday, Eric Papenfuse, who with his wife Catherine Lawrence
owns Midtown Scholar Bookstore in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, said
he planned to rent a tractor-trailer, if necessary, to get their
load back home from this tiny outpost about 140 miles northwest
of Dallas.
"It's all the talk in the world of antique books," said
Papenfuse.
Among the items up for auction was "the McMurtry 101," books
or works the author considered special for reasons of his own -
not necessarily because they were any more rare or valuable than
others.
McMurtry was disappointed to hear that one of them, "The
Bounty Hunter," went for only $850. McMurtry said he paid $1,200
for it.
Another item on the list, a collection of erotica by various
authors including Henry Miller and Anais Nin, drew the biggest
price in early sales Friday, going for $2,750 to Tom Congalton,
owner of Between the Covers Rare Books, Inc., in Gloucester
City, New Jersey. Congalton said he'll be reselling that
collection, which was put together by an Oklahoma oilman, along
with everything else he buys. His purchases, he said, could
number in the hundreds or the thousands, depending on how the
auction goes.
Some of the more than 140 bidders came to add to their
personal collections - or simply to be a part of history.
One heavily tattooed woman from Tyler, Texas, says she'll
put her books in a booth she operates in Dallas selling oddities
along with tattooed furniture and skateboard decks. Wayne and
Joyce Waldrop of Houston bought "The Immigrant," written by
Fyodor Dostoyevsky's daughter, for a personal collection.
Suzanne Vilmain of Santa Fe, New Mexico, a bookmaker, said she's
visited Booked Up before, and just wanted to witness the huge
sale.
A few people were in town to buy books off the shelf, not at
auction, at Booked Up #1, the shop McMurtry plans to keep open
with the remaining 150,000 volumes.
After brief remarks at the beginning of the packed auction
at Booked Up #4, the author headed to Booked Up #1 to relax in
the air-conditioning as temperatures outdoors inched toward 100
degrees.
McMurtry, who suffered a heart attack in January,
acknowledged it had been a tiring few days preparing for the
massive auction.
While his novel writing days are over, working on
screenplays and nonfiction is still a possibility, said
McMurtry, who won Academy Awards for his screenplays for
"Brokeback Mountain," "Terms of Endearment" and "The Last
Picture Show," the last two based on his novels of the same
name.
McMurtry grew up outside Archer City, now a town of about
1,900 people.
Although used book collectors and dealers make regular
pilgrimages to Booked Up, the auction caused a stir in Archer
City, where volunteer Theresa Henry served cookies and bottled
water to the travelers at the city visitors' center.
"It's exciting to see company come to town," she said.
(Editing by Barbara Goldberg)