The Evening Star (1992)

McMurtry reprises the character of Aurora Greenway, star of his earlier novel, Terms of Endearment. ( )

It was a strong book, but not as good as "Terms of Endearment." ( )

n Larry McMurtry's wonderfully funny and poignant novel The Evening Star, the reader meets up again with one of literature's most compelling and honest characters in the name of Aurora Greenway. Feisty, brutally direct and lively - Aurora takes command of this novel from beginning to end. McMurtry sets the novel many years after his blockbuster Terms of Endearment and shows the reader the fates of that novel's beloved characters: Tommy, Melanie and Teddy (Emma's children), Aurora's gruff lover The General, and the unflappable Rosie. Told in alternating points of view and spanning nearly twenty years, the reader is tugged into the life of each character to experience all the turmoil, joy, humor and sadness that their journey has to offer.

Some of my favorite parts of this novel were Aurora and Rosie's meditations on age and sex. Their relationship is a fine tribute to long standing women's friendships that only grow stronger as the years pass.

Filled with humor, philosophical meanderings, and the sometimes heartbreaking process of aging, The Evening Star does not disappoint...it is McMurtry at his finest

Recommended. ( )

Publishers Weekly
Here old age and death catch up with some beloved McMurtry characters familiar to readers since Terms of Endearment . Willful, tart-tongued Aurora Greenway and her outspoken maid and confidante, Rose Dunlup, sp ok? yes are in their 70s when this book begins; Aurora's lover, Gen. Hector Scott, is nearing 90. Their eccentricities have been exacerbated by the passing of years. Still greedy for life and sexual fulfillment, Aurora convinces Hector that they need psychoanalysis to ensure his better performance; then she begins an affair with the therapist, who is 30 years her junior. Aurora's grandchildren, the legacy of her dead daughter, Emma, are painfully neurotic: former dope dealer Tommy is in prison for manslaughter; though trying maintain mental stability with Jane and their adorable baby, Teddy again comes close to breakdown; pregnant Melissa's feckless boyfriend abandons her for a woman with a Ferrari. The vicissitudes of all these lives occupy the overlong narrative, which blends humor and bathos, snappy dialogue and tedious conversations. When McMurtry is at his best, as in capturing the wise and witty exchanges between Aurora and Rosie, the novel is irresistible. ( )