Skip to main content

Finalist: Larry McMurtry: A Life, by Tracy Daugherty (St. Martin’s Press)

An insightful literary biography of the celebrated author written with brio and humor that evokes the Depression-era Texas of his youth and the myth of the American West that he dedicated himself to exposing.

Nominated Work

Larry McMurtry: A Life

A biography of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry from New York Times bestselling author Tracy Daugherty.

In over forty books, in a career that spanned over sixty years, Larry McMurtry staked his claim as a superior chronicler of the American West, and as the Great Plains’ keenest witness since Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Larry McMurtry: A Life traces his origins as one of the last American writers who had direct contact with this country’s pioneer traditions. It follows his astonishing career as bestselling novelist, Pulitzer-Prize winner, author of the beloved Lonesome Dove, Academy-Award winning screenwriter, public intellectual, and passionate bookseller. A sweeping and insightful look at a versatile, one-of-a-kind American writer, this book is a must-read for every Larry McMurtry fan.

Biography

Born and raised in Texas, Tracy Daugherty (he/him) is the author of over ten novels and short story collections, a memoir, a book of personal essays, a collection of essays on writing, a novella collection, and several literary biographies. His 2009 biography of Donald Barthelme, Hiding Man, was a New York Times and New Yorker Notable Book, and his 2015 biography of Joan Didion, The Last Love Song was a New York Times Bestseller. His work has been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. At Oregon State University he helped found the MFA Program in Creative Writing.

Winners

Prize Winner in Biography in 2024:

Jonathan Eig

A revelatory portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. that draws on new sources to enrich our understanding of each stage of the civil rights leader’s life, exploring his strengths and weaknesses, including the self-questioning and depression that accompanied his determination. Biography

The Jury

Caroline Fraser(Chair)*

Biographer, Santa Fe, N.M.

Zachary D. Carter

Nonresident Fellow, Global Order and Institutions Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Soyica Diggs Colbert

Vice President for Interdisciplinary Initiatives and Idol Family Professor of African American Studies and Performing Arts, Georgetown University

Alec Nevala-Lee

Biographer and Novelist, Oak Park, Ill.

Amy Stanley

Wayne V. Jones II Research Professor in History, Northwestern University

Winners in Biography

Beverly Gage

A deeply researched and nuanced look at one of the most polarizing figures in U.S. history that depicts the longtime FBI director in all his complexity, with monumental achievements and crippling flaws.

the late Winfred Rembert as told to Erin I. Kelly

A searing first-person illustrated account of an artist’s life during the 1950s and 1960s in an unreconstructed corner of the deep South–an account of abuse, endurance, imagination, and aesthetic transformation.

the late Les Payne and Tamara Payne

A powerful and revelatory account of the civil rights activist, built from dozens of interviews, offering insight into his character, beliefs and the forces that shaped him.

Benjamin Moser

An authoritatively constructed work told with pathos and grace, that captures the writer’s genius and humanity alongside her addictions, sexual ambiguities and volatile enthusiasms.

2024 Prize Winners

Staff of Reuters

For an eye-opening series of accountability stories focused on Elon Musk’s automobile and aerospace businesses, stories that displayed remarkable breadth and depth and provoked official probes of his companies’ practices in Europe and the United States.