Leaving Cheyenne

Leaving Cheyenne is the second novel written by author Larry McMurtry. It was published in 1963. The novel portrays the lives of people living in Texas from about 1920 to about 1965.

The book is written in three parts. Each is a first person account from the main characters involved in a life-long love triangle: Gideon, Johnny, and Molly.

Film adaptation
Film rights to the novel were purchased by Warner Bros in 1964. McMurtry says Warners wanted to call the film Gid, after the lead character Gideon, to cash in on the success of the movie Hud, based on McMurty's first novel, Horseman Pass By. The writer recalls, "Something like seven scripts ensued, one of them done by Robert Altman, another of them nursed along for years by Don Siegel. Insidiously unfilmic, the book resisted all but the most foolhardy efforts to drag it onto celluloid, until, in 1974, it finally succumbed to the abundantly foolhardy efforts of Stephen Friedman and Sidney Lumet and appeared as Lovin' Molly".