- Mass Market Paperback: 528 pages
- Publisher: Pocket; First THUS edition (Sep 1 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671025570
- ISBN-13: 978-0671025571
- Product Dimensions: 17 x 10.4 x 3 cm
- Shipping Weight: 227 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (59 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,328,122 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
At 62, ever-dependable oil man Duane Moore ditches his pickup and starts walking everywhere--deeply deviant behavior in one-stoplight Thalia, Texas. "It occurred to him one day--not in a flash, but through a process of seepage, a kind of gas leak into his consciousness--that most of his memories, from his first courtship to the lip of old age, involved the cabs of pickups," Larry McMurtry writes. Yet oddly enough, Duane's marriage, four children and nine grandchildren, his career highs and lows, all occurred when he was nowhere near his vehicle. Within days he has moved into his cabin on a hill, reacquired his dog, Shorty the Sixth ("an air of slight guilt was typical of all the Shortys"), and begun to think on these things. Of course, this brings on an additional problem: "He realized that for the first time in his life he had too much time to think; of course he had wanted more time to think, but that was probably because he hadn't realized how tricky thinking could be."
Luckily for readers, Duane's attempts to go off the grid are far from successful. Thus do we have the deep pleasures of his comical and complex encounters with his wife, Karla, and family, not to mention some of Thalia's singular citizens. As ever, McMurtry's dialogue and narration snaps and surprises. He makes his hero's solitude, and his increasing depression, infinitely intriguing. Will Duane's attempts to literally and figuratively cultivate his garden succeed? Will he forge his way through the three volumes of Proust that his attractive new psychiatrist has prescribed in lieu of Prozac? Will the catfish that has found its way into his waterbed survive? Answers to these and many other questions await you in Duane's Depressed, the final book of the marvelous trilogy McMurtry began with The Last Picture Show and Texasville. Let us pray that it turns into a quartet: we need far more of Duane and his family. For a start, his granddaughter Barbi--"a dark midge of a child"--merits a volume of her own. --Kerry Fried --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize-winning author McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) offers the final volume in the trilogy that includes the memorable The Last Picture Show (1966) and Texasville (1987). Drawing inspiration from the small Texas town where he grew up, McMurtry limns a wryly comic and finely nuanced portrayal of oil-rich Duane Moore, 62, a leading citizen of small-town Thalia. Depressed for no obvious reason, Duane vexes and bewilders family and community alike when he suddenly parks his identity-defining pickup truck in his carport and starts hoofing it everywhere. His wife, Karla, their adult kids and the small mob of humorously foul-mouthed grandchildren living under his roof grow more confused as his unsettling behavior escalates, especially when he moves to a crude shack six miles out of town. After he turns the family oil business over to eldest son Dickie (newly out of an Arizona drug-rehab center), the delicate symbiosis of the eccentric little town threatens to break down. Duane's symptoms intensify as he consults a comely psychiatrist in Wichita Falls and buys a fancy bicycle. Sudden tragedy disrupts the hero's therapy just as he is starting to come out of his yearlong deep freeze and, with regret and befuddlement, take a long look at his life. Using barren landscapes and drab interiors to emphasize the subtle, potent drama of Duane's search for himself, McMurtry shines as he examines the issues of alienation, grief and the confrontation with personal mortality. Despite a curious distance imposed by limiting the third-person narration almost exclusively to Duane?which at times renders the voice essentially journalistic?this novel represents McMurtry at the top of his form. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternates. (Jan.) FYI: Scribner is reissuing The Last Picture Show and Texasville in trade paper editions to honor completion of the Thalia trilogy.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
TWO YEARS INTO HIS SIXTIES, Duane Moore-a man who had driven pickups for 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. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
TWO YEARS INTO HIS SIXTIES, Duane Moore-a man who had driven pickups for 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. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Confusion of Change in the Male World,
By Ian Gordon Malcomson (Victoria, BC) - See all my reviews (HALL OF FAME) (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Duane's Depressed: A Novel (Paperback)
Though depressing at times, I found this sequel to "The Last Picture Show" a-more-than-adequate portrayal of a mid-life crisis attacking the male ego, having gone through one myself. While the town of Thalia hasn't changed much in thirty years, Duane Moore, one of its more successful citizens, has. On the surface, Duane has basically everything going for him: a thriving business, a solid reputation in the community, an adequate sex life and plenty of toys in the garage to play with if life starts to drag. Yet, the man lacks satisfaction on all fronts, especially in the areas of personal fulfillment. Life has secretly gone sour. McMurty does a wonderful job of combining a personal landscape with a natural one to produce a much-troubled man who has decided to do a u-turn right in the middle of afternoon traffic of Panhandle Texas. The author treats his readers to pages of often-amusing drama involving Duane's decision to turn inward and abandon the family home for a Thoreau existence in some hovel of cabin in the toolies so that he can learn more about himself. Of course, since Duane's family and friends prove hapless in their efforts to snap him out of his funk, he turns to a young single female local psychiatrist - if such a person could possibly exist on the Texas plains - for some professional help. Out of this protracted and often complicated relationship comes a wonderful understanding that Duane has the ability to start his life anew without destroying it for himself or others close to him; that wanting to change late in life is not all that bad or unusual. This story is proof that levity is an important ingredient in realizing those ambitions. A great story for any of us who need understanding and sympathy during the times when things don't always make sense.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Needs a Movie version ASAP!,
By CALLAHAN "HARRY" (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Duane's Depressed (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the 3rd & "Best" of "The Last Picture Show" trilogy.I can't wait till tis becomes a movie!Hopefully the entire cast from "Texasville" can be back to give us such great comedy and drama.Those who said this is a sad story are miss reading it I beleive. I have always viewed Duane's character as more pathetic than sad. True alot of the plights and things that have occured in Duane's life could be viewed as sad. I tend to view the character as a rich guy leading the average Joe middle-class life. I find this trilogy fasciating more & more as it shows us how all the story's character's past affects the future of a family's up brignning and lifstyles. How it affects Duanne is the main point. The things that happen are comical more so than sad. Yes this is a drama, yes it has very excellent depth and darkness, yet somehow I always view it more in a comical way. The story is complete and more than satisfying. THIS MUST BE MADE INTO A MOVIE!!!!!!To not put this one on the screen would be a shame. I know "Texasville" didn't fare well at the box office, but this one has excellent potential to be another great success like the original. The character depth in this story (in my opinion) relates more back to the characters'study thus allowing for great perfomances and possible academys. This finale is by far the best of the three just because it tells how people come of age. It's a story about life.Jeff Bridges and the rest of the orginal actors need to be brought back for "The Best Picture Show".
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reading Proust through a midlife crisis,
By Mary E. Sibley (Carneys Point, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Duane's Depressed: A Novel (Paperback)
Duane has a dog Shorty for company. He doesn't really want his wife Karla or the townspeople around him. In the past, instead of rehabilitation he had taken up bass fishing. His son Dickie has returned to Thalia and Duane is ready to turn the oil business over to him. Earlier Duane had stopped driving and had moved to a cabin on his property. He walked everywhere.After seeing a psychiatrist he drank five whiskeys and slept for fifteen hours. He felt anxious, as he he did once when Karla nearly bled to death. Staying in Wichita Falls to see the psychiatrist, Duane needed to have someone bring him some clean clothes from Thalia. It is common for people to feel tired from therapy. Duane is reading Thoreau. Larry McMurtry is great, but this really is an absolutely sad book. When he returned to the cabin on a new bike, Karla came over to check on Duane. It seems that Karla has taken to watching the twenty-three MONTY PYTHON videos the couple possesses. Duane encounters the going postal fear when he tries to obtain a passport renewal form in Wichita Falls. I had forgotten that Michael Jordan started the craze for shaved heads. Duane's younger son, Jack, the wild pig catcher has shaved off the hair on his head much to the distress of his mother. The therapy is interrupted by the accidental death of Karla. The psychiatrist recommended that Duane attempt REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST in order to learn about dealing with disappointment. Duane moves back to his household filled with grandchildren and uses the couch in the den for sleeping. Proust and a big garden with surplus for poor people occupies him when his family settles down and his children step in to perform as parents to their children. In the end he does undertake a journey to Egypt.
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