- Paperback: 254 pages
- Publisher: Touchstone Books; 1st Trade edition (April 1987)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0671555375
- ISBN-13: 978-0671555375
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm
- Shipping Weight: 295 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
Product Description
Review
The Washington Post Book World Beautiful....Unquestionably one of [McMurtry's] best novels.
The New Yorker Sad and sweet yet rigorously unsentimental. Mr. McMurtry has the power to clutch the heart and also somehow to exhilarate.
Los Angeles Times Warm and funny...McMurtry can transform ordinary words into highly lyrical, poetic passages...and presents human dramas with a sympathy and compassion that make us care about his characters in ways that most novelists can't. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
The New Yorker Sad and sweet yet rigorously unsentimental. Mr. McMurtry has the power to clutch the heart and also somehow to exhilarate.
Los Angeles Times Warm and funny...McMurtry can transform ordinary words into highly lyrical, poetic passages...and presents human dramas with a sympathy and compassion that make us care about his characters in ways that most novelists can't. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Book Description
Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry writes novels set in the American heartland, but his real territory is the heart itself. His gift for writing about women -- their love for reckless, hopeless men; their ability to see the good in losers; and their peculiar combination of emotional strength and sudden weakness -- makes The Desert Rose the bittersweet, funny, and touching book that it is.
Harmony is a Las Vegas showgirl. At night she's a lead dancer in a gambling casino; during the day she raises peacocks. She's one of a dying breed of dancers, faced with fewer and fewer jobs and an even bleaker future. Yet she maintains a calm cheerfulness in that arid neon landscape of supermarkets, drive-in wedding chapels, and all-night casinos. While Harmony's star is fading, her beautiful, cynical daughter Pepper's is on the rise. But Harmony remains wistful and optimistic through it all. She is the unexpected blossom in the wasteland, the tough and tender desert rose. Hers is a loving portrait that only Larry McMurtry could render. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
HARMONY IS driving home, eastward out of Las Vegas, her spirits high, her head a clutter of memories. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
HARMONY IS driving home, eastward out of Las Vegas, her spirits high, her head a clutter of memories. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Looking for love in all the wrong places...,
By
This review is from: The Desert Rose: A Novel (Paperback)
Not a typical McMurtry novel;but then again none of his are.I've had this book for a long time as well as it's sequel "The Late Child"and for a change of pace decided to give it a try.It is a great read.Somewhat like "Tems of Endearment";but more along the lines of "Cadillac Jack";which was my first McMurtry novel and probably my favorite.As a matter of fact I would'nt have been surprised if he has shown up somewhere;maybe at one of Myrtle's garage sales. McMurtry has put together a great bunch of characters who all belong with one another.Kind of like the cast you find in a novel by Erskine Caldwell,Kinky Friedman,Hunter Thompson or even Steinbeck.These characters come from a different slice of life . These are the personal lives of the people who live very public lives in the Las Vegas entertainment world.In spite of it all, these are real people.Mc Murtry shows it is a tough world and eats up the workers and gamblers and spits them out when they reach the end of their prime or run out of cash.Rather than being Rednecks I guess you'd have to call them Pinknecks.They are somewhat akin to those loveable characters we know as Carnies. Anyway, the book is a great,fast moving read with a surprise on every turn of a page.A lot of characters and I'm glad I made notes as they appeared so I could keep track of them. Liked it so much I'm reading "The Late Child " next to see what happened to all these characters.It's surprising that so much time went by between this book and the sequel--12 years.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning, lyrical novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Desert Rose (Paperback)
Poignant, beautiful, complex character-driven novel a must for McMurtry fans.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stunning, lyrical novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: The Desert Rose (Paperback)
Poignant, beautiful, complex character-driven novel a must for McMurtry fans.
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