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Overview
Funny, sad, full of wonderful characters and the word-perfect dialogue of which he is the master, McMurtry brings the Thalia saga to an end with Duane confronting depression in the midst of plenty. Surrounded by his children, who all seem to be going through life crises involving sex, drugs, and violence; his wife, Karla, who is wrestling with her own demons; and friends like Sonny, who seem to be dying, Duane can't seem to make sense of his life anymore. He gradually makes his way through a protracted end-of-life crisis of which he is finally cured by reading Proust's Remembrance of Things Past, a combination of penance and prescription from Dr. Carmichael that somehow works.
Duane's Depressed is the work of a powerful, mature artist, with a deep understanding of the human condition, a profound ability to write about small-town life, and perhaps the surest touch of any American novelist for the tangled feelings that bind and separate men and women.
Synopsis
In Duane's Depressed, Larry McMurtry returns to the West Texas oil town of Thalia for the final volume of the trilogy he began with The Last Picture Show and continued in Texasville. At 62, Duane Moore is too old for a midlife crisi s. But one brisk day in early February, Duane parks his pickup truck in the carport, hides the keys, and steps out for a long walk. In a community where there are more followers of Islam than committed pedestrians, a man who suddenly starts hoofing it draws no small amount of attention to himself, and soon the entire town is buzzing with the news of his strange behavior. His wife of 40 years, Karla, worries that he may have had a stroke and lost his mind, or, worse, decided that he wants a div orce. His family of casual substance abusers, petty thieves, and caterwauling grandchildren wonder how they will survive with their Pa-Pa holed up in a tiny cabin six miles away. And his lifelong friend, Sonny, seems to have lost the will to live. Only a Proustian prescription from a beautiful, yet unavailable psychoanalyst at last unlocks the source of his depression.
Wall Street Journal - Bob Hughes
...Mr. McMurtry's touch is always light and humorous, even when dispensing sharp insights into the crises of middle age....Mr. McMurtry renders with remarkable tenderness Duane's search for meaning.
Editorials
From the Publisher
Publishers Weekly McMurtry at the top of his form.The New York Times Book Review A worthy end to an important trilogy, one that captures vividly and movingly nearly half a century of life in a great swath of America.
Craig Nova The Washington Post Book World Duane's Depressed...defines the moment, and the consequences of it, when a man comes up against the confines of his life, both practical and spiritual, and decides that he has had enough...striking and moving.
Kyle Smith
...[E]very page...is as welcome as a letter from home, a sad and funny one.—People Magazine
Bob Hughes
...Mr. McMurtry's touch is always light and humorous, even when dispensing sharp insights into the crises of middle age....Mr. McMurtry renders with remarkable tenderness Duane's search for meaning.—Wall Street Journal
Robert Houston
[McMurtry] proves again that he is as clear-eyed a writer as anyone in the business....Duane's Depressed is a worthy end to an important trilogy...that captures vividly and movingly nearly half a century of life in a great swath of America.—New York Times Sunday Book Review
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt
...[T]hrough typical narrative sleight-of-hand on Mr. McMurtry's part, the farce is modulated into something drolly moving....Mr. McMurtry...skillfully [plumbs Duane's] psyche layer by surprising layer....Duane's Depressed holds steady at its core.—The New York Times
From The Critics
McMurtry's touching belief in the flesh-and-blood reality of people who never existed is a large part of his appeal.Library Journal
McMurtry is in fine form in this conclusion to a trilogy that began with The Last Picture Show 1966 and continued in Texasville LJ 4/1/87. Now in his early sixties, Duane Moore is in the midst of a mid-life crisis. He first decides to do without a car and starts walking everywhere--a real shocker in Thalia, TX, where the notion of getting anywhere by foot is laughable. Duane also leaves home and moves to a one-room cabin and then proceeds to pretty much wash his hands of his totally dysfunctional adult children and their children. Karla, Duane's long-suffering wife, suspects that he is having an affair. Since Duane is as bewildered by what's happening to him as everyone else is, he finally agrees to see a psychiatrist. His experiences with the psychiatrist include falling in love with her, reading Proust, and, in an extremely funny scene, attending a book discussion group. McMurtry's characters are rendered lovingly, if outlandishly, and the pleasure of his easygoing style more than makes up for a plot that really doesn't hold together for a minute. The ending feels rushed, a shame because most of us wouldn't mind reading another hundred pages or so of this entertaining novel. Recommended for all public libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 9/15/98.]--Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, SeattleMalcolm Jones
Heartbreaking and hilarious....No living American writer has steeped himself so thoroughly in the history and habits of his homeland or translated it all so vividly onto the page.—Newsweek
Washington Post Book World
Perfectly rendered.Robert Houston
[McMurtry] proves again that he is as clear-eyed a writer as anyone in the business....Duane's Depressed is a worthy end to an important trilogy...that captures vividly and movingly nearly half a century of life in a great swath of America.— New York Times Book Review
Bob Hughes
...Mr. McMurtry's touch is always light and humorous, even when dispensing sharp insights into the crises of middle age....Mr. McMurtry renders with remarkable tenderness Duane's search for meaning.—Wall Street Journal
Kirkus Reviews
Likable characters, wry dialogue, and a bittersweet sense of time passing and opportunities lost are the engaging features of this amiable follow-up (and the conclusion of a trilogy) to McMurtry's The Last Picture Show and Texasville.Once again, the story's set in and around the west Texas town of Thalia, where former high-school football hero and wealthy oilman Duane Moore is enduring, at the age of 62, a late midlife crisis. Forty years of marriage to his beloved, exasperating Karla and a houseful of itinerant dysfunctional adult children and their smart-mouthed progeny have taken their toll: inexplicably one day, Duane abandons his pick-up truck and begins a regimen of long, meditative walks (raising family speculations about his fidelity and sanity), and, in unconscious emulation of Thoreau, moves to a cabin conveniently distant from family obligations and pressures ("He had stepped out of the flow of ongoingness"). With one dramatic exception, little happens—other than Duane's bemused scrutiny of his own "depression," and encounters with such agreeably deranged friends and neighbors as his self-destructive employee Bobby Lee, nearsighted secretary Ruth Popper (Picture Show's unlikely femme fatale), and storekeeper Jody Carmichael, WWII veteran and "compulsive sports gambler." Duane does gather enough energy to rent the bridal suite at a deliciously seedy motel while undergoing psychotherapy with Jody's daughter, Dr. Honor Carmichael, with whom he falls absurdly in love, leading to a yearlong struggle reading Proust and some climactic self-discoveries that don't surprise either Duane or us, but do precipitate a highly satisfying ending that reconcileshim with Karla and enables Duane to finally indulge the pleasures he has long denied himself.
There's a scarcity of story here, but McMurtry obviously enjoys these folks so much he can't resist hanging out with them for 400-plus pages. You probably won't be able to either.