#667 in our old book database. Not rated.

Funny in a typical Texas kind of way, though the title has little to do with the story. The characters are off the charts as are the situations, especially the Centennial Celebration which in and of itself is a farce! Great stuff by a talented author. ( )

There are no adults in this story, at all. The dialogue is fun at first, but the novelty wears off over 500 pages and nearly 100 weirdly short chapters of cynicism. Wildly unlikeable characters do nothing but fling wisecracks, drive a few blocks to have joyless sex with inappropriate partners, spend money they don't have on useless junk, and neglect their out of control children. There is no resolution, no satisfaction, no decisions made, no responsibility taken, and very little plot. (I mean Larry - couldn't you at least have let us in on what Ruth was doing with the mail, after teasing it half a dozen times?!) Only because I love McMurtry did I push through to the end, but it was not an enjoyable read. ( )

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I picked up this mass market paperback.  Probably was homesick - I think I got this book sometime in the 20-year period I lived in Washington state.  Finally got around to reading it after being back in Texas nearly 16 years.  You can tell it was not a high priority - the only book left on my TBR shelf (after reading them, I donate the books) is the 1036-page Hawaii by James Michener.

Texasville, the sequel to Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show (which I never read nor saw at the movies),  was an okay read for the end-of-year holiday period, when one tends to be distracted by so many other things.  The 98 short chapters made it easy to pick up and put down.

The book is basically a bunch of navel-gazing by Duane Moore, 30 years after the events in the first book.  It's the 1980s, and the big drop in oil prices has put 48-year-old Duane about $12 million in debt.  Meanwhile his wife Karla continues to spend money like crazy, and his four children, in their teens through early 20s, are out of control.  Everybody in town (including Duane) seems to be having at least one affair.  No wonder Duane's Depressed (oh wait - that's the next book in the series).

At 561 pages, this book is way too long.  It rambles and is only loosely tied together by the Hardtop County centennial celebration in the town of Thalia, where Duane, his family, and all the rest of the eccentric characters live (in or near). The Texasville of the title is the original settlement in the county, and no longer exists.  Thalia is based on McMurtry's real hometown of Archer City, Texas, and I have to wonder just how much of Duane is McMurtry.

I do think this is a book where it would have been better to have read The Last Picture Show first (or at least seen the movie).  The characters were not well developed in Texasville, and I might have understood some of them better if I'd read the first book in the series first.  As it is, I'm not interested in reading anything else in the series now. ( )

Another great family story by one of my favorite authors. ( )