Larry Mcmurtry

The Winemaker's Daughter, by Timothy Egan. Knopf. 320 pages. $24.95. Larry McMurtry has Texas, Garrison Keillor has Minnesota and Louise Erdrich has the northern Plains. With this novel, his first work of fiction, Timothy Egan stakes his claim as the voice of the Pacific Northwest. He makes a compelling case. A national correspondent for The New York Times, Egan has demonstrated in three books of nonfiction that he is a page-turning storyteller with a naturalist's eye for the landscapes of Washington state and beyond.

"Dead Man's Walk" is mythic in its approach to the Old West and epic in its scope. It includes some fine acting, wonderful writing and magnificent cinematography, enough violence to keep even the most testosterone-laden male happy and a handful of strong female characters to help balance the equation.But it's no "Lonesome Dove," and your fondness for it will probably be in direct proportion to your willingness to forgive it that transgression.The latest from the guaranteed-ratings-blockbuster pen of Larry McMurtry, "Dead Man's Walk" tells the early adventures of Gus McCrae and Woodrow Call, the two old cusses who took a herd of cattle to Montana in "Lonesome Dove" a few years back.

Benefit showThe Greater Dundalk Jaycees will sponsor a benefit baseball card show and sale on Oct. 27 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Dundalk American Legion Post 38, 3300 Dundalk Ave. A $1 donation is asked at the door. Orioles player Scott McGregor is scheduled to attend to sign autographs for $2 donations. All proceeds will go toward the Jimmie Richards Fund. He's a local 16-year-old who has been battling cancer for the last three years, and the community has mobilized to raise funds for his care.

Texas writer Larry McMurtry is one of my favorite authors. I just finished his latest book, "Evening Star," which is a sequel to his best seller "Terms of Endearment."I had a hard time wading through the new novel. It seemed tired, half-hearted. It did not get good reviews. Still, I have always stood up for McMurtry, a Pulitzer Prize winner who draws wonderfully sharp characterizations."Evening Star" is mostly about the wacky, self-indulgent Aurora Greenway, played in the "Terms of Endearment" film by Shirley MacLaine.

Once the Olympics are over, are you prepared to deal with post-Olympics stress syndrome, the trauma of not being able to watch any more of the games of the 26th Olympiad? Probably not, so maybe you should try to ease yourself back into the mundane reality of everyday TV life by watching just one non-Olympics piece of programming tonight. Here are some suggestions."Nova" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., MPT, Channels 22 and 67) -- "Terror in the Mine Fields" visits Cambodia and looks at the danger of living in a country where 25 years of war have left millions of land mines buried underground.

Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit cleaned up Saturday at the 33rd annual Annie Awards. The movie earned best animated picture honors, along with kudos for, among other categories, animated effects, character animation, music in an animated feature , character design in an animated feature (creator Nick Park), directing in an animated feature (Park, Steve Box), and voice acting in an animated feature (Peter Sallis, who voices Wallace). Armstrong, Crow call it off Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow have split, the couple announced in a joint statement Friday night.

9 TO 5 / / 20th Century Fox / $19.98 Certainly you will remember the clothes. The hemlines, the shoes, the poofy shoulders, the poofy hair. The year, 1980, will come rushing back at you in the fashions worn by stars Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton, who clearly had a rollicking good time making this working-girl movie 25 years ago. 9 to 5 is the story of three women trapped in "the pink-collar ghetto" of a corporation. They form a reluctant alliance to get their "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical, bigoted" boss, played by Dabney Coleman.

How's this for big-name talent? Cybill Shepherd in a movie written by Larry McMurtry based on a book by Shelby Foote?That's part of the lineup in "Memphis," a made-for-TV movie that premieres at 8 tonight on cable channel TNT. And the whole is even greater than the sum of its parts. This is one of the most stylish, lyrical and finely crafted TV movies of the year. You'll feel the sweat, sex and desperation of the main characters while the film plays. Images of violence and tenderness will rattle around in your head long after the final credits roll.

Small towns must be the same the world over, and the Redhills of County Cavan, Ireland, in "The Playboys," which opens today at the Rotunda, reminded me of nothing so much as the Anarene of Texas, America, in "The Last Picture Show". Both are bitter places, stewing in their own bubbling broth of envy and avarice and nosiness and lust, run by smug gentry and filled with kids who just ache to get out.The movie indeed might be called "The Last Stage Show," because it's an account of the effect a small traveling theater troupe has on the place in the mid-'50s, just as the bland beams of television were about to mill most of the regional uniqueness out of such places forever.

Today's Hollywood sounded as puffed-up and platitudinous as Old Hollywood through much of the 78th annual Academy Awards. Cathy Schulman, co-producer of the upset winner, Crash, thanked everyone who embraced the movie's message of "love, tolerance and truth" - high-flown spin on a movie about racism that was pretty much a two-hour hatefest. Crash director/co-writer/co-producer Paul Haggis (who won best original script) loosely quoted Bertolt Brecht that "art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it."