How A Lonesome Dove Binge Led a British Student to the U of A

British by birth, Abel Fenwick's unlikely journey to studying cowboy literature at the U of A began in a hotel room in New Jersey binging Robert DuVall movies with a friend. That marathon included the Lonesome Dove miniseries, based off the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Larry McMurtry.

"It was an instant hook," she said. "The story is so human."

That experience sparked a passion in Fenwick that led her to study English as a graduate student at the U of A, an experience that has further led her to visit the production archives for the Lonesome Dove miniseries and even coordinate an academic conference to discuss McMurtry's works.

Fenwick's own scholarship explores McMurtry's portrayal of masculinity and the deconstruction of the Western genre's heroic myths in McMurtry's screenplay Streets of Laredo, which is a foundational but oft-overlooked precursor to Lonesome Dove. Fenwick's research also argues that the Streets of Laredo screenplay is not the "total critique" of the Western that many claim it to be, instead positing that it functions as "a comedy of masculine failure, with the majority of the humour triggered by the aging characters' inability to live up to Southwestern masculine standards."

To conduct this research, Fenwick applied for and received a grant to travel to the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University, a nationally renowned research center, archive and museum that features materials and costumes from the Lonesome Dove miniseries production.

"I spent a week looking at the original screenplay from 1972," she said. "It's the primordial version of Lonesome Dove, in that some of the themes are there, some of it is completely different, and they only make it as far as a canyon in Texas. So, it's a little less full."

"The Wittliff Collection is incredible," she continued. "They've got all of the costumes from the production and really extensive collections of McMurtry's work."

Fenwick also led the coordination of a conference titled "Lonesome Dove at 40: McMurtry, Mythmaking, and the Reimagining of the American Southwest," which was held last fall at Southern Methodist University. There, Fenwick presented her research alongside other scholars from across the country.

"It was the nicest conference I've been to," she said. "Because basically everyone who was there was so enthusiastic about the source material, and everyone at SMU was so welcoming."

Fenwick first learned about the U of A through an Italian American studies conference hosted here — she joked that she "was notable for being neither Italian, American, nor studying at the time."

"It was the heart of SEC season, so I loved the bustling atmosphere and the cool restaurants," she said.

She credits the U of A for providing her "so many opportunities" to develop as a scholar and a person. And after graduation, she plans to work in publishing industry or as a teacher, with the goal of pursuing her Ph.D. in the near future.

"The department has specific funding so that students can go and attend conferences," she said. "I've been able to go to [Professor] Robert Cochran about anything and everything I need. He's an absolute gem, and the whole department is great."