Italics are mine

Review of "Terms of Endearment" by Larry McMurtry

I picked up this book when McMurtry died and I didn't have the heart to read Moving On beyond the first ten pages (it is something like one thousand pages long) and after I read All my friends are going to be strangers I still didn't have the heart to tackle Moving On so I went for Terms of Endearment and OMG, if you except the last 50 pages (Book 2), it was so exceptionally good I remember laughing out loud when I was reading it at night in Marfa and I don't normally laugh out loud when I read books, except Blind Side and Straight Man. McMurtry is a keen observer of the human behavior and he can really put himself in the head of his protagonists. Then, the last 50 pages are so summarized that they don't read like a novel but rather a treatment of a novel that McMurtry had once hoped to write and then lost interest in. I know this part became a movie, and the movie may itself be excellent (the storyline will certainly be more developed), but you can't really tackle one of the lead characters' illness and death in 50 pages at the very end of your book and expect to be taken seriously for it. So I will watch the movie and hope for the best. The first 350 pages of the book were truly original and hilarious, showing a unique take on the world and standing out for their depiction of Houston and a world now gone by. Book 1 is so good, I can't wrap my head around the fact that an editor allowed Book 2 to be tacked on to this masterpiece - perhaps because McMurtry had lost interest in it, and the idea was sufficiently developed to be turned into a book. Anyway, this is an excellent book. Five stars out of five, because I am determined to ignore the tiny and flawed Book 2.

Review of "The Dutch House" by Ann Patchett

I bought this novel when Ann Patchett came to Dallas on her book tour before the pandemic shut everything down, but I misplaced the book and ended up buying it again as an audiobook to prep for my trip to Marfa. The first two CDs out of 8 were quite boring, as I found the character of Andrea the stepmother rather stilted and predictable. This was what I put up with while I was driving toward Marfa, and frankly I was glad to arrive, and I also listened to other CDs on the way, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. But after the b!tch (Andrea) kicks her husband's young children out, and got out of the story, I found the novel to be spellbinding. (That was on the return trip.) I was driving through West Texas and couldn't stop listening.

It may have helped that Tom Hanks was doing the narrating, but the story was also rock solid and truly moved me. Ann Patchett knows exactly when to summarize events and when to focus on feelings, and the feelings are what kept me engaged, so in her way she taught me a thing or two about writing novels in the process. I felt gut-punched so many times in this book - when the kids are forced out of the house, when Danny learns about his mother, when the mother shows up, and more (can't tell you what in order not to spoil the story). The story is one of a beautiful sister-brother friendship that stretches over decades and many hardships. Patchett's insights are mind-blowingly spot on. So although the book has a slow start (in its first 25%), it really ends up glowing. And making the reader feel some things that are not often felt.

And the young girl on the cover is of course supposed to be Maeve, Danny's older sister, whom Andrea kicks out of the Dutch House along with Danny. And given Maeve's fate at the end, this was the perfect cover, so absolutely moving, and perfectly chosen. It took me a while to decide what to rate this book but I started at two stars out of five and then increased it to three, then four, and by the end I had decided this book was truly a five stars out of five.