Last Picture Show

A Novel

customer reviews

The Last Picture Show is one of Larry McMurtry's most powerful, memorable novels -- the basis for the enormously popular movie of the same name. Set in a small, dusty, Texas town, The Last Picture Show introduced the characters of Jacy, Duane, and Sonny: teenagers stumbling toward adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love. Populated by a wonderful cast of eccentrics and animated by McMurtry's wry and raucous humor, The Last Picture Show is wild, heartbreaking, and poignant -- a coming-of-age novel that resonates with the magical passion of youth.

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Simon & Schuster |
288 pages |
ISBN 9780684853864 |
January 1999

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Praise

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“The New York Times Book Review McMurtry is an alchemist who converts the basest materials to gold; the sexual encounters are sad, funny, touching, sometimes horrifying, but always honest, always human. ”

“Los Angeles Times McMurtry can transform ordinary words into highly lyrical, poetic passages. He presents human dramas with sympathy and compassion that make us care about his characters in ways that most novelists can't. ”

“The Boston Globe There aren't many writers around who are as much fun to read as Larry McMurtry. ”

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Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Sometimes Sonny felt like he was the only human creature in the town. It was a bad feeling, and it usually came on him in the mornings early, when the streets were completely empty, the way they were one Saturday morning in late November. The night before Sonny had played his last game of football for Thalia High School, but it wasn't that that made him feel so strange and alone. It was just the look of the town.

There was only one car parked on the courthouse square -- the night watchman's old white Nash. A cold norther was singing in off the plains, swirling long ribbons of dust down Main Street, the only street in Thalia with...