LETTER- Eschew spoilers, please

I recently started reading Lonesome Dove at a friend's insistence, and I'm loving it. It's one of those all-important American novels that I can't believe I put off reading this long. I knew of the film Robert Duvall starred in, and I was looking forward to seeing it after reading the book, so as not to spoil anything.

Imagine my horror when I opened the Hook to your article "Duvall's dishes" [cover story, October 26] and found out that Duvall's character, Gus, dies. Sweet Jesus, why would you spill such a giant plot point in the second line of an article on which your little piece of trivia has absolutely no bearing? 

I can take certain measures to protect myself from this information, but I hardly expected it to kick off a story about Duvall. Do we really need to know exactly which films he died in? Personally, I felt that line slowed down the article on top of severely annoying me. The last time I felt this way was when Entertainment Weekly spoiled the finale of Six Feet Under.

I don't mean to criticize, but please be more careful in the future.

Ian Ryan
Charlottesville

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