When the Light Goes

I think this is 4th McMurtry book about Duane Moore, from The Last Picture Show. I didn't read the last one. This is pretty slight, and it's kind of an old man's wet dream. It reminded me a bit of Roth's Everyman, in that they're both about (at least in part) an old(er) man's sexuality. The writing here is breezy, the characters comfortable after all these years, and the book is short enough so they don't irritate (as I remember they did in Texasville). There was a time, long ago, where I read every McMurtry to come out.

I love McMurtry’s earlier work so much that it hurts to write that this book is pretty much trash. Duane Moore was a great character in Last Picture Show, Texasville, and even to some extent in Duane’s Depressed, but this one is a cheap novel with no real depth. The sex scenes are awkward and not believable, as are the relationships he has with the women in his life. Reads more like an old man’s erotic fantasy than a novel.

If I'm correct about the sequence of books here (not having yet read the earlier ones), this is the most recent book in the lives of characters first portrayed in "The Last Picture Show", followed by "Texasville" and "Duane's Depressed". Duane Moore, now widowed and in his 60's, has returned to dusty little Thalia, Texas, after a 2-week trip to Egypt. Depressed and disconnected, he can't even bring himself to enter the house he and his late wife raised their children in. He's also in love with his psychiatrist, and torn when she decides to sever their professional relationship and re-awaken him sexually. This serves to leave him properly discombobulated when a young, attractive geologist, Annie Cameron, enters his life, and the question show more that remains is, what will he do with the remainder of his life. Well-written, and you do develop an affectionate caring for Duane and some of the other characters. It's just that at the end, you have the vague feeling that not much has really happened. But sometimes the choice of how to live out one's life happens just like that, I suppose. I do want to read the earlier entries in the storyline now. show less

This book is, I believe, the fourth book in the series featuring Duane Moore which began with "The Last Picture Show." All of the books up until this one were excellent, and I was looking forward to more good storytelling about Thalia, Texas, and the Moore family and friends, but it was not to be. Thinly developed plot, lots of gratuitious sex scenes told in excruiating detail, definitely not up to this author's usual high standards. I will read the next one in this series in the hope that "When the Light Goes" was an aberration.

This was a rather brief ending to the Thalia cycle. I read it in two nights and was mostly pleased with it, although I thought the ending was rather nondescript. I kept wondering how he was going to close it out. I guess it's hard to bring something as sprawling as this four-book saga to an end. Regardless, it was still a good read and I'm glad I finally finished reading these books. It took several years, I think.

A nice, easy read. It was better for having read the previous Thalia books but I liked the story. There was a bit of me in it I guess. Most of us might think that about McMurtry's modern times western novels.

I found it too vulgar, and self-centered, though maybe that's just the way Duane, the main character is. Felt unfulfilled after reading it.