The Last Picture Show [Mass Market Paperback]

Larry McMurtry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1992

Fans of this Pulitzer Prize-winning author will want to read the book that started his bestselling tradition--a tradition repsonsible for the sale of over 9 million books. This most memorable of McMurtry's novels, set in a sleepy Texas town, tells of teenagers taking the final steps from childhood to adulthood.

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 --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

The New York Times Book Review McMurtry is an alchemist who converts the basest materials to gold; the sexual encounters are sad, funny, touching, sometimes horrifying, but always honest, always human.

Los Angeles Times McMurtry can transform ordinary words into highly lyrical, poetic passages. He presents human dramas with sympathy and compassion that make us care about his characters in ways that most novelists can't.

The Boston Globe There aren't many writers around who are as much fun to read as Larry McMurtry. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (May 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671753819
• ISBN-13: 978-0671753818
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,029,112 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Larry McMurtry is the author of twenty-nine novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning Lonesome Dove. His other works include two collections of essays, three memoirs, and more than thirty screenplays, including the coauthorship of Brokeback Mountain, for which he received an Academy Award. His most recent novel, When the Light Goes, is available from Simon & Schuster. He lives in Archer City, Texas.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 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 - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME 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 . . .

19 of 22 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!

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Has earned a top-notch spot on my bookshelf., January 6, 2005

By 

Mark Philip Mcinnis "pmcinnis1" (Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The LAST PICTURE SHOW : A Novel (Paperback)

I'm 17 and have lived in a small town all my life, although my town is a little less depressing than the community of Thalia. The theme of this book is the trappings of small towns, the loneliness of them, and the bittersweetness of youth, which I could relate to all too well. I had not read McMurtry before, but was instantly smitten by the 50's setting and the author's excellent characterization. The book reads swiftly, thanks to the compelling characters (and their many love affairs), who are likeable but still recognizably flawed, yearning for what they can't have, and settling to get what they can.

This is not your typical coming-of-age novel. It is a beautifully crafted work of Southern lit that I think even a city-dweller could relate to; although it is predominantly about being stuck in Thalia, it's also about feeling so lost in a place you know so well. My first McMurtry novel to read is now one of my favorite books.