The Last Picture Show

Rating:
Summary: This is the book to read if you enjoyed "Lonesome Dove".
Review: "The Last Picture Show" is undoubtedly one of Larry McMurtry's finest novels. Set in a small town on the barren North Central plains of 1950's Texas, this beautifully told coming-of-age story captures the dual spirit of the blind hopefulness and hard reality that are such a part of growing up. Only McMurtry could deliver such a brilliant cast of characters who are as equally eccentric as they are ultimately tragic. This coming-of-age story flows wonderfully against the vast and desolate backdrop we know as the state of Texas in a time when the wide-open ranges and cowboys of legend had given-way to the barbed-wire and oil derricks that had come to take their place. This is vintage McMurtry. If you enjoyed "Lonesome Dove", you'll certainly enjoy "The Last Picture Show"

Rating:
Summary: Great story telling in the American tradition
Review: "The Last Picture Show", one of Larry McMurtry's earliest and most famous works, prove what a great story teller he is. The characters (Sonny, Duane, Jacy, Ruth, Herman, Lois, Sam, etc) all seem so true to life you find yourself caring about them as they suck you into their sex-obsessed world of teenage lust and adult disappointments. Sonny and Duane mistake Jacy for the glittering prize she is not and pay for it in their own ways. Jacy is manipulative, shallow and heartless and easily the most despicable character (perhaps after Herman) but even then, you feel pity rather than hatred for her. The miserable lives of Ruth and Lois lend a deep sense of pathos to the story. Life is "no win" in this small Texan town. You never forget the bleakness of the lives of this ensemble cast of characters in small town America but not for one moment do you feel weighed down by a sense of dreariness which seems to afflict novels of this genre. McMurtry's easy writing style and his sparkling wit and humour, all conspire to lighten the mood and keep the reader in rapt attention throughout. He never makes heavy weather of serious themes and though his works (including TLPS) are studied today as literature, it is so accessible and incredibly enjoyable you never feel it is hard work. Such is the talent of McMurtry. The next thing I'm going to do is check out the award winning movie version which McMurtry had a hand in making and is considered one of the classic movies of the early 70s. One of the most enjoyable novels I have read this year. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: We all know people like this ...
Review: ... at least in high school. I thought Sonny a little depressing, but he is like so many I knew when I was a teen, it seemed perfectly normal that he was never really happy. Duane seems more focused, less prone to depression than Sonny, but he has a red-hot temper when it comes to Jacy, who doesn't love him but uses him nonetheless. Jacy is a snobby, conniving, user who wants out of Thalia so bad she can taste it. Her favorite past time is making her parents pay for living in a nowhere place. The adults are the most interesting people in the book, though. Sam the Lion, Mrs. Popper, the Coach ... those are the people you want to know more about but never really do.

A great book for a rainy weekend.

Rating:
Summary: A realistic view of the fifties
Review: America thinks of the fifties as one big malt shop, complete with it's own Fonzie, and a non-stop stream of only the most popular rock and roll hits piped in through the very air. Enter this book, which shows an alternate view that might be more accurate.

This was the world of a small town in Texas at that time. Instead of World War II, which unified the country, the military conflict at the time was in Korea, where nobody could figure out what it was all about. The "official" entertainment of the town consisted of a one-pool-table bar, and the title movie theatre. Even this is on it's last legs, which could be considered a metaphor for the whole town.

Now McMurtry loves to write stories that give no quarter and pretty much leave you with the feeling that life is not worth living. This one is no different, with nobody overcoming huge obstacles to win the big one, or even the little one. Yet I've read this book several times, and it burns an impression in me about this time period that all the episodes of "Happy Days" cannot. I even imagine that the time occurred in black and white, which is what they shot the movie version in.

So we get our cast of characters that are immortal, at least in my mind. The horny teenagers with slim pickings to keep them from inbreeding. The coach who has more homosexual tendancies than the English teacher he drives out by falsely accusing him of the same thing. The coach's wife who picks up on one of the horny teachers because her pickings seem to be also slim. The local cad who gets not only the seemingly only good-looking girl in town (slim pickings again), but her mother. In fact, there seem to be so few people in the town that you wonder if everyone isn't the others' cousin.

If reading this so far makes you think I'm putting all this down, I'm not. This is great reading by an author who just knows how to whip together a good story. If you'd like to try McMurtry, and find his thousand-page epics overwhelming, this would be a great one to begin with.

Rating:
Summary: A Landmark Book for Several Generations
Review: As a novelist with my first book in initial release, I am a great admirer of Larry McMurtry and his LAST PICTURE SHOW. This book speaks strong messages to many generations. It tells the universal tale of three teenaged friends--Duane, Sonny, and Jacy--as they struggle to achieve adulthood. Duane's in love with Jacy. Sonny thinks he is too. Jacy also loves herself, more than she can love anyone or anything else. She wants out of her small Texas hometown, and she'll do just about anything to escape. The book was written about teenagers growing up a half century ago. It was made into a magnificent film three decades ago. THE LAST PICTURE show is still read widely today. It is perhaps McMurtry's greatest achievement.

Rating:
Summary: McMurtry is an author to relish
Review: Every year at Christmastime I've been buying myself a McMurtry novel to put in my own stocking...it used to be a guilty pleasure of mine, because I've never cared much for Westerns. For years I'd heard the hype about Lonesome Dove and finally started reading a paperback someone left at my house. I've been hooked ever since. McMurtry breaks all the rules for a great novelist: the plot is nonexistent in places, he adds details that aren't necessary to the story, and character is ultimately what's most important to the structure of the novel. His writing works because character is truly the only thing we have; the only thing that other people remember when we're gone. The Last Picture Show should be required reading for high-school students (though I'm sure the sex would disqualify it for most tight-lipped school boards). It's one of the few truthful growing-up stories I've ever read--cruel, exhilirating, honest, and touching. My only complaint about the novel is that it seemed clipped in places, as if sections had been removed by an editor with a mission to curb the length of the book. I'm sure that McMurtry's publishing clout has increased over the years and I'd love to see him rerelease an unabridged version of the novel. It's a classic.

Rating:
Summary: McMurtry's Best
Review: For emotional impact and believable characters and motivations, this is by far McMurtry's best novel. Lonesome Dove was more commercial, but then so was the First Wives Club and anything by Jackie Collins, so commercial does not necessarily equate with literature. Take this book for what it is and when it was written, don't judge it by today's standards (gee, not a car chase or devastating explosion in the whole book)and you'll find yourself believing in and caring for the wonderfully ordinary people populating this great book.

Rating:
Summary: Brutally honest and masterfully written.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Brutally honest and masterfully written.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic novel.
Review: I disagree with the readers who thought McMurtry's characters are flat and undeveloped. Part of the beauty of this novel is that everything in it works to convey the listlessness of these high schoolers. They're bored, lonely, lost souls looking for something to fill the void. And you feel their aching melancholy throughout the whole of this short but powerfully deep novel.