Buffalo Girls is a 1990 novel written by American author Larry McMurtry about Calamity Jane. It is written in the novel prose style mixed with a series of letters from Calamity Jane to her daughter. In her letters, Calamity describes herself as being a drunken hellraiser but never an outlaw. Her letters also describe her larger-than-life cohorts.[1]
McMurtry depicts gritty events and relationships in the life of fur trappers, cowboys, soldiers, prostitutes, and Indians as the Wild West fades away, changing their way of life. The characters struggle, and many fail, to adapt to the settling of the West. In an effort to adapt and relive the Wild West, many of the characters, along with Calamity Jane, resort to performing in Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show. They exploit and are exploited by their frontier lifestyle, before being defeated by it in the end.[1]