The Last Picture Show

I saw the film a few years ago, which put me on the McMurtry path. I completely loved the film, but don't remember much from it.

This book is a lot darker than I expected. Which has been true for every McMurtry book I've read other than Lonesome dove. Probably safe to assume dove is the outlier and I should make these the new baseline.

My favorite part of mcmurtry is how he writes these completely gut wrenching sentences showing deep characterization, but they're always mashed between pages of purely utilitarian sentences. He's a hard writer to pin down.

At one point one of the characters refers to the small dusty Texan town this novel is set in as “this horny town” and she is right. Sex is on everyone's mind. There's teenagers and their first times, pranks to get the local simpleton laid, various May November affairs, secretly gay teachers and a mild case of molestation. There's even bestiality as farm boys will be farm boys (the casual way McMurtry dropped this in, was really disturbing).

And despite all the sex, this novel is infused with sadness and sad characters. That are stuck in their limiting surroundings, drudging along, yet never self-pitying. With a few scenes they become lively and memorable. I especially enjoyed his Ruth, and Lois. Sam. Billy. Genevieve.

My second McMurtry after Lonesome Dove (which i LOVE) and really enjoyed this one too.

This is the story of Duane, Jacy, and Sonny—teenagers longing for love and a more thrilling life—as well as some of the adults in their small town of Thalia, Texas. The teenagers dream of bigger things than the town seems to offer and the adults are drawn to the fresh teenagers like moths to a flame. The adults' misery with life in Thalia is palpable.

This story is humorous and nostalgic, yet melancholy and dejected. The sadness most of the characters feel about their lives is front and center, and even when the teenagers are thrill-seeking, their bad decisions come back to haunt them in the form of unexpected outcomes. The adults are no better. Even in the last chapter when Ruth rages at Sonny's ineptitude and inadvertent coldness toward her, she still longs for his youthful touch while she exclaims, “I'm really not smart.”

I'm certain around the time of its original publication, the spotlight on the internal lives of these teenagers' sex lives must have been illuminating. But reading it now, the revelations are somewhat cliché and groan-inducing, rather than thrilling.

But more importantly, McMurtry's writing is economical yet sturdy, even poetic at times. And he has a strong ability to develop characters in a natural way. There is one chapter that affected me deeply, the one where Sam the Lion goes to the lake with Duane and Sonny and tells them about a time when he was their age and took a girl to the same spot on the lake. It is a moment of reflection for Sam the Lion that affects him and the reader deeply, revealing his longing for a love and a place in time that is distant yet ever-present in his heart. The teenage boys have a difficult time imagining their elder statesman as a teenager like them, doing the same lusty pining they themselves are guilty of doing. It's an excellent scene with a lot to contemplate and unpack, and its written beautifully.