The LAST PICTURE SHOW : A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author) "SOMETIMES SONNY FELT like he was the only human creature in the town..." (more)
Key Phrases: foot toughener, tank dam, football jacket, Joe Bob, Sam the Lion, Jimmie Sue (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In The Last Picture Show Larry McMurtry introduced characters who would show up again in later novels, Texasville and Duane's Depressed. This first volume of the trilogy drops the reader into the one-stoplight town of Thalia, Texas, where Duane Moore, his buddy Sonny, and his girlfriend Jacy are all stumbling along the rocky road to adulthood. Duane wants nothing more than to marry Jacy; Sonny wants what Duane has; and Jacy wants to get the hell out of Thalia any way she can. This is not a novel of big ideas or defining moments; over the course of a year Duane and Jacy make up and break up, Sonny begins an affair with his high-school football coach's wife, and the only movie house in town closes its doors forever. Yet it is out of these small-town experiences--a nude swimming party in Wichita, a failed sexual encounter during a senior trip, a botched elopement, an enlistment--that McMurtry builds his tale and reveals his characters' hearts. No epiphanies here, just a lot of hard-won experience that leaves none of his protagonists particularly wiser, though they're all a little sadder by the end. --Alix Wilber

Review

The Boston Globe There aren't many writers around who are as much fun to read as Larry McMurtry. -- Review

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684853868
• ISBN-13: 978-0684853864
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,838 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best of its kind, December 3, 1999

By	Doug Vaughn (Washington, Dc USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Last Picture Show (Mass Market Paperback)

Larry McMurtry, probably America's most uneven 'great' writer, produced at least one masterpiece of contemporary storytelling, The Last Picture Show. This book is so true to its time and place, so honest in its language and its character's actions, that one comes to feel that these are real people that one has known - and maybe loved - for a long time. The story is so direct and the characters are so simple and ordinary that the emotional empact of the book comes as some surprise. One doesn't expect that the stuff of great emotional intensity could be built on such a prosaic foundation.

All of McMurtry's really good books have been turned into better than average cinema. I think it's a toss up as to whether the movie or the book is better in this case, but there can be no question that the book is an American classic and will be read with pleasure (and tears) by generations.

Now, if we could just keep him from bad sequels - like Texasville . . .

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brutally honest and masterfully written., April 28, 2004

By	Mark "Technology, Music and Movies" (East Coast) - See all my reviews (#1 REVIEWER)

Great writers write about what they know and the places they know. It's not a surprise that McMurtry sets so many of his stories in Texas. But that does not lessen the universality of his stories. The Last Picture Show is simply the best coming of age story about growing up in post-vietnam north america ever written.

This book is written in a clean direct style. Some may feel that in order to be termed "great literature" a book has to have a wordy and complex style. But to me, the greatest literature is that which most clearly cuts to the essence of what makes its characters human. Those are the characters we relate to in literature. And this book is loaded with them.

In fact it's almost frightening the way McMurtry gets inside the heads of these kids. If you remember anything about growing up you are bound to cringe at least once remembering the time you made the mistake of thinking exactly what one of these kids did.

I don't think this type of amazing story-telling is unique to this novel. Terms of Endearment is an incredible book and seems to have not been mentioned by most other reviewers. Of course Lonesome Dove is bound to have admirers as well.

In all, this is a great novel that is simple on the surface but has layers of complex undertones for those willing to explore them.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 1950s Texas setting; universal small-town themes abound, November 4, 2004

By	Melissa P. Cooper "kymissyin" (Indianapolis, IN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Last Picture Show (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow. Like the movie that was based on it, this book is one of those almost-forgotten gems of modern art. Other folks here have outlined the plot--such as it is--and the characters. I am just here to add my own endorsing reflections, for what they're worth.

Larry McMurtry really nailed it on the head where small-town America is concerned. The ties that bind, the price you pay for being different in ANY way, and how, in Lois' words, "anything gets old if you do it often enough." (I grew up in a town that had a "show" that didn't get movies until a year or two after they'd played in the big cities. And I had a teacher or two as lazy as Coach Popper (none as chauvinistic, however). People who went to "off" to college were the exeption rather than the rule--much as it was in Thalia. We had boys and girls like Duane, Sonny, and Jacy, too--though I don't remember hearing of any were close to their livestock. . .if you know what I mean:)) At least two of the characters here had married young--because that's what you did and what else was there to do, really--and settled into lives of boredom and routine. While I can't say I thought all the actions of the young and not-so-young characters here were necessarily smart or well-thought-out, there was never a moment that I didn't understand what they were thinking.

Much has been written about Sonny, Duane, Sam the Lion, and the other menfolk here, but I also thought McMurtry did an especially good job of developing all four of the main female characters here--especially Lois, and secondly Jacy--both of whom had spirit and passion much too large for the time and place of their lives. I liked these women in spite of myself! I will now have to read Texasville to find out what happens to them and everyone else.

I recommend this to anyone who enjoys character studies or stories about small-town living (though you might enjoy this more if you left the small town like I did).

Very well-written. This did whet my appetite for more of Larry's work!