The Late Child

Rating:
Summary: Classic McMurtry: good story and characters whom you'll miss
Review: A nice sequel to The Desert Rose. In Harmony, the central character, McMurtry reveals someone who is so full of warmth, so open with her fears and misgivings and just so real that I found myself missing her when I finished the book. Of course, that's frequently effect that his main characters have upon me. I did feel, however, that he tried to juggle a few too many characters -- some of them were pretty lame. On the whole though, it is an enjoyable story with creative plot twists

Rating:
Summary: better than I expected
Review: As far as McMurtry sequels go, I'd rank this novel beneath "Texasville," "The Evening Star," and "Streets of Laredo," but ahead of most of the others. It exhibits McMurtry's excellent command of the English language; his voice, particularly in writing dialogue, is a compelling one. The reason I don't rate this book a bit higher is that it is almost totally plotless, and by the end seems sort of pointless. The idea is to show Harmony learning to make her own way in life, and more than that, learning that that is the right decision to make. But to me, that theme only becomes evident late in the novel, and the fact that it is Pepper's death that brings this process about for Harmony weakens her as a character, rather than strengthening her. That may only be my resentment of McMurtry's killing off Pepper, who in "The Desert Rose" was a particularly vivid character. He's sort of had the tendency in the later part of his career to kill of characters I like for no particularly good reason -- Newt Dobbs, anyone? -- so I've got to dock him a couple of points for that. Still, if you are a McMurtry fan, I recommend this novel.

Rating:
Summary: better than I expected
Review: As far as McMurtry sequels go, I'd rank this novel beneath "Texasville," "The Evening Star," and "Streets of Laredo," but ahead of most of the others. It exhibits McMurtry's excellent command of the English language; his voice, particularly in writing dialogue, is a compelling one. The reason I don't rate this book a bit higher is that it is almost totally plotless, and by the end seems sort of pointless. The idea is to show Harmony learning to make her own way in life, and more than that, learning that that is the right decision to make. But to me, that theme only becomes evident late in the novel, and the fact that it is Pepper's death that brings this process about for Harmony weakens her as a character, rather than strengthening her. That may only be my resentment of McMurtry's killing off Pepper, who in "The Desert Rose" was a particularly vivid character. He's sort of had the tendency in the later part of his career to kill of characters I like for no particularly good reason -- Newt Dobbs, anyone? -- so I've got to dock him a couple of points for that. Still, if you are a McMurtry fan, I recommend this novel.

Rating:
Summary: His Worst Book, Period
Review: Frankly, I couldn't believe that McMurtry wrote this. I was so excited to see a sequel to The Desert Rose- it could have been great. The only interesting character in the entire (long) book is Harmony's son- and after awhile I even found him to be annoying. And come on- the dog jumped off the Statue of Liberty and lived? McMurtry made a name for himself by writing about reality- maybe he should stick to that.

Rating:
Summary: Different is good sometimes......
Review: I usually have big fun reading LMcM's novels, but this one fell far short of the mark. I guess I really prefer his novels set in the old West and other action fare.

Most of the characters just wore me out. Sort of wanted to slap them. Pretty silly in spots. And, how can a bunch of adults be bossed around by a five year of kid. The dog jumping off the Statue of Liberty and living was another aspect that was hard to accept. Thinking back, it's hard to come up with a character I could really care about.

On the plus side, it was a fast read and the usual interesting McMurtry dialog was always present.

Mr. McMurtry has given me so much reading pleasure in the past that I will still await his future offerings. No one bats 1.000, so he's entitled to a miss.

Rating:
Summary: Really surprised...
Review: I wanted to like this book--I've heard good things about McMurtry--but frankly it's a mess. I think I know where he was headed with the premise: Ragtag group sets off on impromptu cross-country adventure! Amazing things happen along the way and people rediscover themselves!
But the things that happen are a little too impromptu and amazing, and...well, the result reads more like a 1960's hippie travelogue, where half the things are experienced through a drugg-addled haze, and the other half made up entirely. Why are these cab drivers hanging around? The ones I know have to work on a regular basis. Why did they suddenly decide to take a hooker in and let her travel with them? Doesn't she have to work as well? All these people--cabbies, prostitutes, puppies, Presidents, boyfriends--pop in and out of the story, and for no good reason. They don't add anything to the plot. I know he's trying to give a sense of how umpredictable life can be, but it doesn't work. I just turned the pages, frowning, thinking "Is this really going anywhere?"
The sisters don't really add much, either. I had trouble telling them apart. They were like cardboard cutouts--"Sex Addict" "Baptist Husband" "Dead Daughter"--and oh my lord, they were so ignorant. Not in the sense that they couldn't find Estonia on a map or something--I can forgive that--but they lacked savvy. They just didn't seem to know what they were doing at any given time, and I don't believe that. They were all about 40 years old or so, and you can't live that many years without picking up some smarts.
The child was supposed to be precocious, but he really just stated the bleeping obvious all the time. No insights there.

I will say that I liked the ending. My favorite character--surprise!--was the horrible nagging mother. She was so bad it was funny, and I've actually met people who are nearly that bad-tempered. Her personality was awful, but at least she had one!
Harmony giving that one man a handjob was severely out of place, though. I don't have moral objections, I just don't see what it had to do with anything, or what it solved.
My favorite line in the whole book... The man shoots out his window because he's angry, and this dialogue follows:

Harmony: "Lots of men don't know how to show it." (emotion)
"Well, let him learn with somebody else, if he intends to learn," Neddie said. "I don't see why I should have to wait thirty years for a man to blow out a window." Priceless.

I think McMurtry was trying for something different with this book, and he just couldn't pull it off. Many writers have done the same thing.

Rating:
Summary: Life, grief and love
Review: McMurtry's sequel to "The Desert Rose", which introduced the romantic, optimistic Harmony, ex Las Vegas showgirl, and her arid, glittering environment, deals with the death of the child she agonized over in "Desert Rose."

In the first book Harmony coped with her difficult daughter, Pepper, and truggled to come to terms with aging. Now Harmony copes with the sudden news that Pepper, who she hasn't seen since Pepper left for New York at 17, six years before, is dead.

In her late 40s, Harmony has settled into a routine. She has a job in a recycling plant and an adored 5-year-old son named Eddie. Her current boyfriend, the latest in a long line of losers, runs off rather than deal with her grief. "She was not the same cheerful woman he had left only eight hours before."

Grief overwhelms Harmony, but Eddie keeps her tethered. "Eddie was the one person left that she absolutely had to think about."

Meeting her Oklahoma sisters at the airport, Harmony finally finishes the letter from Pepper's roomate. They were lovers as well as roomates, it seems, and Pepper died of AIDS.

A few days later Harmony sets off on a cross-country Odyssey with her sisters and Eddie. Harmony is looking for a new life and hungers for family solidarity back in Oklahoma. But even as their trip begins the two older sisters bicker constantly and the details of their lives begin to emerge in patterns of ragged desperation.

Harmony, bouts of disconnection alternating with her responsibility and love for Eddie, decides to go to New York and meet Laurie, the roomate. She must learn about Pepper's life and try and understand her death.

Eddie, a precocious and delightful child, with just enough brattiness to make him human, collects a family along the way - an abandoned dog, a teenage New Jersey prostitute and her sorry husband, three Indian entrepreneurs and Laurie.

While Laurie and Harmony try to join the pieces of the Pepper they knew, Eddie and his dog become celebrities and are invited to the White House. As Washington is on the way to Oklahoma, they get a school bus and the whole enthusiastic clan goes along. But slowly they begin to drop off - they cannot escape their lives by joining Harmony and Eddie's.

And in Oklahoma Harmony realizes that she did the right thing years ago - when she left her dead-end hometown and her negative, impossible-to-please mother.

McMurtry's portrayal of the grief of a mother for her child is clear-eyed and unsentimental. The zany characters and incidents along the way are humorous, jarring, irritating - visiting on the reader the same displacement life is visiting on Harmony.

While the zany happenings and heart-of-gold eccentrics sometime seem too Disneyish, only one aspect of Harmony's grief doesn't ring true. Although Pepper's death was sudden, for AIDS, only eight weeks, Harmony never asks why she wasn't told earlier, when she might still have seen her daughter alive. She doesn't agonize or even reflect over this, although she lingers over regrets about not visiting her daughter when it seemed they had all the time in the world.

Rating:
Summary: McMurtry Celebrates Humanity
Review: Once again, Larry McMurtry writes with such unabashed compassion for people, warts and all, that I came away uplifted. This book is a perfect example of how McMurtry is the antidote to the Dr. Laura-style judgementalism which permeates our culture. In this book, McMurtry collects flawed folks, eloquently and humorously describes their mistakes and insecurities, then loves them anyway. When I'm in an over-critical mood, reading a McMurtry book is just the attitude adjustment I need.

Rating:
Summary: unique + great
Review: Some may be disppointed by the differences between this and some older McMurtry books, but I found a couple important things in common:
- the book drew me in, kept my attention, and was entertaining throughout
- there were some great characters (Harmony, her son Eddie, and her father) along with some other unusual but mostly interesting ones
I had really liked The Desert Rose (the first of this 2 book series) but I even enjoyed this book more. At the end I hated to be done reading about these characters.

Rating:
Summary: "We choose our lovers by their flaws"...
Review: The best way to read this sequel is immediately after reading its prequel;"The Desert Rose".The surprising thing is that McMurtry wrote "The Desert Rose" in 1983 and "The Late Child " didn't come out till 1995. That's a long wait!
Again, this story continued along the same path.Even more so, the thought processes of the characters reminded me of the characters in many of Erskine Caldwell's novels;the most well known being "Tobacco Road" and "God's Little Acre".
McMurtry's immagination never seems to slow down and you are presented with one wild thing after another,with each turn of a page. The chapters are very short,many only a couple of pages;but he puts more in one of those short chapters than most writers put in 30 or 40 page chapters.
This book has a plethora of great lines;for example:
"Your standards are the standards of a doormat."
"Dick don't have enough imagination to get lonely."
"Rog don't have a speed-neutral ain't a speed."
"That's how I feel,I just don't know how to live."
"Stuck in the driver's seat and the car was moving,
but she had no map and no idea of where she was supposed
to go."
"The fact is,it's a living death,and I've lived as long as
I can."
"It ain't hard to die when you've already stopped living."
This has been a great read,and I hope Larry is working on a trilogy;Lord knows he has created enough characters who would be fun to follow.However,please don't make us wait another 12 years.