The Last Picture Show
In The Last Picture ShowLarry McMurtry introduced characters who would show up again in later novels, Texasvilleand 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
Stats for nerds
2recommend
3mentions
3people
2019–2025years
67% recommend33% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I have loved Cormac's books since I was a child, but never read Larry McMurtry until recently. If you're in the same boat, I implore you to give one of the below a try.
Lonesome Dove -- A great story about washed-up Texas Rangers with achingly beautiful writing.
The Last Picture Show -- More tonally similar to Cormac's stories. Coming of age in a dusty Texas town.
Leaving Cheyenne -- I have never in my life recommended a romance novel until this moment. I'm literally crying as I write this, remembering the closing scene.
- [Some other random american novels I find excellent/significant]
Crossing to Safety - William Gaddis
Chronic City - Jonathan Lethem
Latro in the Mist - Gene Wolfe
Arcadia (Play) - Tom Stoppard
The Last Picture Show & Texasville - Larry McMurtry [Read both]
The Blithdale Romance - Nathaniel Hawthorne
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
^One of the most interesting novels touching on Southwestern United States. The First chapter regarding the Wolf is one of the most uniquely environmental sections I've seen by prominant American authors. Admittedly, I'm a bit biased in this regard.
A Scanner Darkly - Phillip K Dick
- What a loss to literature but McMurtry's legacy lives on.
If anyone is looking for novels of his try out the Thalia trilogy Larry wrote. It bleeds Texan vibes in a very human, realistic fashion. And if you're into film there's a movie based on the last book The Last Picture Show in which McMurtry was also involved with the screen play. They filmed it in Archer City, the town he grew up in and heavily inspired the novel.
R.I.P. Larry!
