McMurtry, Larry (Vol. 2) - McMurtry, Larry 1936–
McMurtry, Larry 1936–
American novelist, author of The Last Picture Show. (See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed.)
First, the virtues [of "Moving On"]. Mr. McMurtry has a good ear: These people talk the way people actually talk in Houston, at rodeos, in Hollywood. Mr. McMurtry also has a marvelous eye for locale: The Southwest is superbly evoked. It is a pleasure to read about Rice University instead of Harvard, as it is a pleasure to escape claustrophobic novels that rely on the excitation of the verbal glands instead of the exploration of social reality. The portrait of the California sun-bunny, Clara, reminds me of why I left that state. And the dominant ideas in "Moving On" are workable….
But McMurtry simply doesn't know how to turn off his electric typewriter. Almost as though acknowledging the inability of Patsy, et al., to sustain so long a book, he shores it up with detail. He is, for instance, very big on...
[The entire page is 983 words long]
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