Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Paradise – Larry McMurtry (2001)

Paradise by Larry McMurtry

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Something about the early 2000s and about male writers born in the 1930s that wants to write a biography of one’s parents. I think about the John Williams novel Stoner, about a kid who grows up in rural Missouri on a farm, gets sent to college to learn about agronomy and economics, falls in love with Medieval literature and never looks back. There’s that kind of maybe guilt, maybe sense of responsibility built into these kinds of biographies. And I can think of quite a […]

The Last Kind Words Saloon – Larry McMurtry (2014)

The Last Kind Words Saloon by Larry McMurtry

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It’s probably not a great sign for a book if while reading it I keep thinking about the much better books out there about the same topic and plot that I would rather read, review, and recommend. So I will do a little of both here. This book tells some of the final stories about Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, which Wild Bill Hickock and Buffalo Bill floating around in the background. This is a book about the closing of the West, not in the […]

Rhino Ranch – Larry McMurtry (2009)

Rhino Ranch by Larry McMurtry

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Something about the last two books of this series and perhaps Larry McMurtry in general really feels the need to weigh in on whether or not Duane Moore is ever going to have sex again. The previous book When the Light Goes is decidedly bad, and this book is better, but both are obsessed with this question. A few years on from the previous book, we find Duane still married to the young Annie, who is more wayward than hoped and the two have a kind […]

Two years into his sixties, Duane Moore–a man who had driven pickups for as long as long as he had been licensed to drive–parked his pickup in his own carport one day and began to walk wherever he went.

Duane's Depressed by Larry McMurtry

When the Light Goes by Larry McMurtry

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Duane’s Depressed – 4/5 Stars This is the third book in the “Last Picture Show” books. While the first novel would work as a perfectly complete novel, and was for 20 years, the second novel, Texasville came out and was surprisingly good. Following up on Duane Moore as a man, married for 20+ years and in his late 40s with kids and grandkids, and seeing about whether the ambivalence he felt at the ambivalence his Texas town felt allowed some decent exploration into the ravages of […]

“The success of a marriage invariably depends on the woman,” Mrs. Greenway said.

Terms of Endearment by Larry McMurtry

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I have seen the movie of this maybe two times, but I think more than once. And so I was a little leery going in given how sad and potentially maudlin this book might end up being. But I always forget well Larry McMurtry refuses to create melodrama (even in his silly books) and how infused with complication and complexity his books are. He remains a very solid writer in general, and he’s very good and spying on domestic relations with a real focus on […]

Patsy sat by herself at the beginning of the evening, eating a Hershey bar.

Moving On by Larry McMurtry

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This book is a lot of book. It’s a very plot heavy book that takes place starting around 1960, primarily in and around Houston, but also takes forays into Los Angeles, Wyoming, and other places around the country. We are mostly into the young marriage of Jim and Patsy Carpenter, starting the summer before Jim is meant to start his English PhD at Rice University. Patsy is mostly along for the ride as Jim wants to further explore his interest in the rodeo photography as […]



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