TERMS OF ENDEARMENT [Paperback]

LARRY MCMURTRY (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: PHOENIX (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857991923
• ISBN-13: 978-1857991925
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,993,101 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

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One Of McMurtry's Best, May 22, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (Las Vegas, NV) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Terms of Endearment: A Novel (Paperback)

I'm a big fan of Larry McMurtry, and am amazed at the amount of quality material he has cranked out over the years. Be it with his "Lonesome Dove" series, or his more contemporary novels such as this one, there always seems to be parts of the story that make one despair about life in general. There is usually death of some kind. While many authors will write something 'redeeming' about a death, McMurtry will tend to show the stark fact that life goes on, and often a death is indeed a big waste. Cruel as it sounds, it is probably more real than we'd like to admit, and for that, I like his work.

While this novel doesn't contain the wholesale slaughter of his westerns, there is enough pain to carry the story in his manner described above. What makes the book great is how he takes a pair of characters who are not that pleasant a couple, and makes us really care for them. Aurora, the widowed mother, is an overweight, overbearing woman who constantly cajoles those close to her. Her daughter Emma, also overweight and seemingly without focus in life, is not exactly someone you're gonna turn the TV on to see. One is tempted to close the book early on and look for more uplifting characters, but McMurtry hooks you, first with comedy, then tragedy.

I was surprised to see how much I grew to like Aurora by the end of the book, and have sympathy for Emma. There is a method to Aurora's rudeness. For example, being a widow, she has a handful of male suitors. At first I was wondering what all these older guys saw in her, as elderly guys, by sheer numbers, would have the pick of much more numerous older ladies. We see how she keeps them at arm's length, and as the book goes on, we see how they fit into their lives. When several of the suitors often wind up in the same room without too much bloodshed, we see that the method does work. Aurora has a role for each of them, and understands that most of them would not be able to keep up with her.

Same with Emma. If I were to meet this person at just about any part of her life, I probably would have little interest. But we do see the needs of this person. Yes, she probably made a big mistake with her choice of husband. But we see how she does want affection from a man who doesn't seem to have much to give, and thus turns back to her mother. While they both keep each other at arm's length, we can see the bond that holds them together until the end.

Terrific book, and and excellent translation to the screen.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I loved the book, June 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Terms of Endearment: A Novel (Paperback)

This is one of my faviorite books. I laugh alot and cried at the ending. I loved the characters. i could almost see Vernon living in his car. I liked the book better than the movie.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The dominant mother and the play-along daughter, May 16, 2010

By 

Alysson Oliveira "Alysson Oliveira" (Sao Paulo-- Brazil) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Terms of Endearment: A Novel (Paperback)

`"No choice", Aurora muttered, abandoning the field. It was another of her favorite expressions, and also one of her favorite states. As long as she could feel robbed of all choices, then nothing that went wrong could b her fault, and in any case, she had never really enjoyed choosing unless jewels and gowns were involved.'

This is Aurora Greenway, the restless matriarch and protagonist of Larry McMurtry's perennial classic "Terms of Endearment". She is a person who leaves no choice for those around her. She is the one who makes the choices - what makes life a little hard for her bunch of suitors and her grown-up daughter, Emma, whose marriage could be seen as both a escape from her dominant mother and a relationship doomed to fail.

McMurtry, in this novel, is able to create to vivid female characters by displaying more of their actions than their inner thoughts. As the real life of the narrative, Aurora is a dominant presence in the book. Sometimes she seems to threaten to jump from the pages and steal the novel from the author and transform it into something else- what might not necessarily be a bad thing.

As much delineated as Aurora is, as a character, sometimes the lack of a pre-narrative life burdens of her shoulders. Who is she? And more why is she the way she is is a fault in the narrative. Some flashback, or even in a dialogue, some hints could be given of Aurora's past life. Not only would this add dept to the character but nuance to the narrative. "Also, Aurora was easier to like when she was down. The minute her spirit rose she became contrary again." Would glimpses like these into Aurora's psyche be more frequent, "Terms of Endearment" could be a better novel, because they would bring strength to the narrative and humanize the characters.

McMurtry is really good when it comes to delineate people using dialogue, rather than plain prose. If on one hand this brings swing to the narrative, on the other, sometimes this device avoids a deeper look into the inner life of his characters. By the way, his female characters are more developed than the male ones. Aurora, Emma, and their maid, Rosie, are more resembling to human beings than, Aurora's suitors (a general, an oil tycoon, and an Italian), Emma's husband, Flap, and Rosie's, Royce.

Emma is the best person in the novel, but to the reader is denied to learn better about her until the last 50 pages of the novel, when it might be a little bit too late for that. Is she submissive? Is she playing a character to survive her mother's dominance? Or is just she too silly to overcome her mother, husband or friend who are always threatening to steal her life away from her? Never mind. These are questions that shouldn't be answered, since Emma lives a life of submissions however much she would prefer not to.

Despite its obvious flaws, McMurtry's "Terms of Endearment" is still a good read because it is able to capture the lives of his characters in a given moment. There may not be much room for what comes before the narrative begins - despite, what comes later can be imagined - but, still, from the first to the last page, the reader has slices of lives that are worth to follow.