Moving On anticipates McMurtry’s Terms of Endearment and explores the emotional journey of a young woman against a sprawling metropolis in 1970s Texas.
Larry McMurtry’s Moving On, his epic first novel in the acclaimed Houston series, has long been considered a defining tale of “monumental honesty” worthy of great attention (New York Times). Preceding Terms of Endearment by five years, it is essential reading for anyone who appreciates the inherent genius of McMurtry’s late twentieth-century fiction. Moving On centers on the life of Patsy Carpenter, one of his most beloved characters. After calmly finishing a Hershey bar alone in her car, a restless Patsy drives away from her lifeless marriage in search of a greater purpose. In “precise and lyrical prose” (Boston Globe), McMurtry reveals the complex, colorful lives of Pete, the rodeo clown; high-spirited cowboy Sonny Shanks; and impassioned grad student Hank. A critical work of American literature that “presents human drama with sympathy and compassion” (Los Angeles Times), Moving On unfolds a tale of perseverance and emotional survival in the modern-day West.’s fourth largest city” (Douglas Brinkley, New York Times Book Review), All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers is a powerful demonstration of Larry McMurtry’s “comic genius, his ability to render a sense of landscape, and interior intellection tension” (Jim Harrison, New York Times Book Review). Desperate to break from the “mundane happiness” of Houston, budding writer Danny Deck hops in his car, “El Chevy,” bound for the West Coast on a road trip filled with broken hearts and bleak realities of the artistic life. A cast of unforgettable characters joins the naïve troubadour’s pilgrimage to California and back to Texas, including a cruel, long-legged beauty; an appealing screenwriter; a randy college professor; and a genuine if painfully “normal” friend. Since the novel’s publication in 1972, Danny Deck has “been far more successful at getting loved by readers than he ever was at getting loved by the women in his life” (McMurtry), a testament to the author’s incomparable talent for capturing the essential tragicomedy of the human experience.
