Texasville [Hardcover]

Larry McMurtry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1987

The brilliant sequel to The Last Picture Show is McMurtry's richest novel to date, as moving as Terms of Endearment and as full of real and memorable characters as Lonesome Dove. "Texasville crackles with energy, humor and passion".--Washington Post Book World.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this arresting, funny-sad sequel to The Last Picture Show, McMurtry's small Texas town of Thalia has gone from boom to bust practically overnight, a victim of the mid-'80s oil glut. Under the strain of financial calamity, the townsfolk are becoming increasingly irrationalone man dreams of bombing OPEC, the mayor is going quietly mad, sexual mores are turning bizarre, and the civic leaders are pressing on with a centennial celebration even though there's nothing to celebrate. The stresses of the time seem concentrated in Duane, a one-time oil millionaire on the verge of bankruptcy who has four untamable children, a disaffected wife and a diminishing grip on his sanity. Duane's problems are exacerbated when his high school sweetheart, Jacy, now a movie actress, comes bowling into town like tumbleweed. McMurtry, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Lonesome Dove, is a writer with a distinctive voice, a profound understanding of Texans and a brilliant gift for capturing the vagrant moods of the heart. Major ad/promo; reprint rights to Pocket Books; BOMC selection.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Can a novel that deals with midlife crises, the loss of youthful aspirations, the withering of love, and the entombing of dreams be side-splittingly funny? This one is. Pulitzer Prize winner McMurtry returns to Thalia, Texas, setting of The Last Picture Show , where the once lovelorn teenagers are now town fathers planning a county centennial celebration. But what's there to celebrate? The town got rich with the oil boom and is now going broke with the oil glut, and its residents seem as sunk in emotional depression as the town is in its economic one. What McMurtry's characters take most seriously and worry most about inevitably turns out comically. The unplanned high points of the celebration are a tumbleweed stampede, broom-handle battles between teetotalers and beer-guzzlers, and an egg bombardment. For some this may seem a less than satisfying sequel to The Last Picture Show , but it is a more mature book, less angry, more tolerant, and more accepting of human foibles. Recommended. BOMC main selection. Charles Michaud, Turner Free Library, Randolph, Mass.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1st edition (April 15, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671625330
• ISBN-13: 978-0671625337
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #343,737 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 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars When life doesn't live up to expectations. . ., June 18, 2004

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: TEXASVILLE : A Novel (Paperback)

Thirty years have passed since Duane Moore and Sonny Crawford graduated from high school in Thalia, Texas. The events of "The Last Picture Show" are a distant memory to everyone except Sonny, who continues to live in the past and occasionally gets lost there. Duane has married, gotten rich in the oil boom, raised a bunch of kids, built a 12,000-square-foot house outside of town, and is now $12 million in debt. The boom is over, and disappointment, the dominant mood of the characters in McMurtry's earlier book, is settling in again.

This time, however, disappointment and depression are mostly played for laughs. Sonny, the poignant central character in "Picture Show," has been sidelined in this story by Duane's domestic conflicts, his efforts to remain optimistic in the face of bankruptcy, and his affair with a married woman who is also carrying on with Duane's dope-dealing, womanizing son. McMurtry plays up the ironies and absurdities of life in Thalia where, as Duane observes, everyone seems to have gone crazy. The married and unmarried swap partners with the free-for-all abandon of romance as it's portrayed in country and western songs. And a kind of lunacy grips others, whose adventures push the narrative into wildly implausible episodes of farce, such as a mammoth egg-throwing fight on the closing night of Thalia's centennial celebration.

The melancholy mood that dominates "The Last Picture Show" makes only a brief appearance in this much longer novel, as Duane remembers a young employee killed in Vietnam. And readers, like me, who are fans of McMurtry's earlier work, will be disappointed that McMurtry treats the sorrows of his characters this time so lightly. At worst, the behavior of the town's residents gives Duane headaches and he comes to a realization that his "success" as an oilman and a respected citizen is not an achievement that gives him much self-esteem. The liberated 1980s women in his life (wife Karla, mistress Suzy, and old high school sweetheart Jacy) constantly remind him that he's less than adequate as a man. And at 48, he understands that he no longer has the energy he once had.

Meanwhile, there are pleasures to be had in the novel. In particular, I enjoyed the endless varieties of ironic and humorous disputes that characterize the verbal exchanges between the characters. Duane has a comic ruefulness that both protects him and reveals his vulnerability. And finally, that is the central theme of this novel as all the middle-aged characters (and there are a host of them) try in one way or another to come to terms with lives that haven't lived up to expectations.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love it anyway, August 20, 2002

By 

Tracy Jones And/Or Bob Jones (Fort Myers, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Texasville (Mass Market Paperback)

The common theme among the other reviewers seems to be that "it ain't no Last Picture Show." While I can recognize that LPS is a more tightly constructed book in the English class, reading it for credit context, I think this book actually has more life. The action is absurd in many respects, and the characters do selfish things, but there's a buoyant feeling to the whole business. Sometimes, driving down the road, I think of how Duane's dog, Shorty, rode away from Duane "looking inscrutable," and I just crack up. This is McMurtry doing what he does best.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Texasville, December 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Texasville (Mass Market Paperback)

I read this book a while ago, but it has stuck in my memory ever since. I thought this book was the funniest book I'd ever read. I remember actually laughing out loud while reading. Maybe you have to be from down south or to be a southerner to understand the humor, but I thought it was hilarious.