Montrose - Daily Press

Publisher’s Notebook

Stephen Woody

Maybe the best opening line in a book: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

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This is, as many know, the opening sentence from Charles Dickens’ classic, ‘A Tale of Two Cities.’

It’s a good, long allegorical (and historical) leap from Dickens’ story (1859) of human redemption to Larry McMurtry’s frivolous ‘When the Light Goes.’ Yet McMurtry, like Dickens, grabs the reader in the first few sentences. (I’d mention here, but it’s too racy for a family newspaper.)

It also helps if the reader has read the first three books of this sweeping Texas oilfield/small town story, which began with ‘The Last Picture Show’ (1966), then ‘Texasville’ (1987), and then, ‘Duane’s Depressed,’ (1999). Most McMurtry fans thought that was the end of it. But Duane Jackson is back, now 64 with three blocked arteries thanks to a lifetime diet of chicken fried steaks. Too, he’s confronted with all kinds of assorted sexual weirdness and feminine complexity.

It’s another thing, too, to read this book and recall the iconic, and affecting film, ‘The Last Picture Show,’ (1971) where Duane’s character first took root. While reading ‘When the Light Goes,’ it’s difficult not to see in the dialogue, Jeff Bridges as Duane, Cloris Leachman as Ruth Popper, and Randy Quaid as Lester Marlow. (Ms. Leachman won an Oscar for her role; the film was a breakout for actors Bridges and Quaid.)

The characters are now past middle-age, and Duane’s wife of 40 years, Karla, was “head-onned by a milk truck” in the last book. In ‘Light,’ Duane’s in love with his lesbian psychiatrist, his kids are estranged, his friends are gone, and his hometown of Thalia, Texas, is just about kaput. Life’s “muddled up,” he says.

A NYTimes critic says the book is a “rumination on post-midlife sexuality and mortality.” It is that, and frankly, surprisingly quite explicit.

This is McMurtry’s 30th novel, and it doesn’t take long to get through the 195 pages of ‘Light.’ At the end, I was reminded of what a music critic once said of the great Miles Davis, in that it isn’t the music that he plays, it’s the notes he doesn’t. McMurtry doesn’t waste a single word.

One aside about McMurtry, who is 71 and lives now in Tucson.

He’s an ardent book collector and has written about his love of reading, books and book collecting. Years ago, he moved his voluminous collection from Washington, D.C. to his hometown of Archer City, Texas, where the film, ‘Picture Show’ was made. McMurtry restored to old Royal theatre, which was featured in the film. He also bought up old, empty stores around the town square and made them into bookstores, Booked Up. There are seven of them, housing books by category. In all, McMurtry owns some 450,000-plus books.

Archer City’s a bit out of the way, some 1,848 souls living near Wichita Falls, but Susan and I decided a few years ago to stop in and take in his bookstores and stop by the Dairy Queen for chicken fry. (By the way, one of the best ambassadors Montrose has for its hospitality is Karen Fox, at the Holiday Inn/Express. She’s from Archer City.)

McMurtry is a prolific and much-honored author and screenwriter, who has won just about everything in American literature from a Pulitzer (‘Lonesome Dove’), to several Oscars, (‘Hud,’ ‘Terms of Endearment,’ ‘Brokeback Mountain.’) The day we were there, we browsed for a couple of hours, marveling at how all of these books were owned by a single individual.

Hoping to see one my favorite authors, chat him up, have him sign an autograph even, I asked the lady at the front counter when does (the great) Larry McMurtry come in.

“When he wants to,” she replied.

Oh.

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