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The Last Picture Show #3
Duane's Depressed
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.
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.
432 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
82 people are currently reading
1521 people want to read
About the author
Larry McMurtry
150 books4,045 followersLarry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 181 reviews
September 22, 2022
“Without realizing it, he had been wasting time-years and years of time, time that would never be his again.”
This is my third book / trip with McMurty’s character Duane Moore (introduced to readers in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW). If I was not already invested in this character and his life I think this book would have irritated me. For the first 100 pages I was not overly thrilled with it, but then (as often happens with McMurtry) things changed on a dime. I think that to read DUANE”S DEPRESSED out of sequence, or as a stand-alone would be a bad experience. Reading it after having read the first two books featuring Duane Moore gives it much more impact.
The first 30 pages reminded me a lot of this novel’s predecessor, TEXASVILLE, as McMurtry dips us once again into the chaos that is the home life of Duane Moore. I laughed out loud several times during those initial pages. But the novel slowly shifts over the first 100 pages and at chapter 12 I feel we get the thematic core of the text. It reads like a modern, and more accessible, Thoreau. I found it interesting and a little unnerving. Much like Thoreau himself, if you take the time to think on his writings. I mean, what person of middle age when they read a line like this- “Without exactly knowing it he had reached a point in his life where he had to live differently if he was to live at all…”- does not stop in their tracks with at least a little pang of recognition?
I had such an odd experience with this text. Once again with McMurtry I was stunned by how succinctly, and accurately, he depicts the capriciousness of life. It kicks the reader in the gut. There is a death in this book (that comes out of nowhere) that affected me like no death I’ve encountered in my recent fiction reading. I am still not sure why, or how it happened, but it did. I was shocked, and a little sad at something that was not at all real, yet so very true to life.
Quotes:
• “The thought of his own ignorance made him feel a little guilty.”
• “Sex was one of those things that seemed to inhabit a no-man’s-land beyond explanation or excuse.”
• “He wanted to be out of town, beyond the ghosts that lived in his memory.”
• “Love’s mostly suffering anyway.”
• “They were all doing more or less exactly what they should be doing-wanting, living, getting, squeezing as much as possible out of their little moments…”
• “He had other things to do, though it would not have been easy for him to say what the other things were.”
• “…all he knew at the moment was that his desires lay somewhere in the spacious realm of unsatisfied curiosity.”
• “Some crazy people are perfectly happy being crazy.”
• “He did not want to be a tumbleweed, sent skittering in his mind by every sharp breeze that life blew up.”
• “Everybody loses something as they go along in life.”
This novel is melancholy, yet not depressing. It is rather contemplative. And that can scare some readers who maybe don’t want to think a little bit about their own life. When Duane muses this sentiment, the reader sympathizes. “He realized that for the first time in his life he had too much time to think; of course he had wanted more time to think, but that was probably because he hadn’t realized how tricky thinking could be.”
There were times that DUANE’S DEPRESSED just soared emotionally. It may not be for everyone, but there are moments of great depth and insight in this novel.
This is my third book / trip with McMurty’s character Duane Moore (introduced to readers in THE LAST PICTURE SHOW). If I was not already invested in this character and his life I think this book would have irritated me. For the first 100 pages I was not overly thrilled with it, but then (as often happens with McMurtry) things changed on a dime. I think that to read DUANE”S DEPRESSED out of sequence, or as a stand-alone would be a bad experience. Reading it after having read the first two books featuring Duane Moore gives it much more impact.
The first 30 pages reminded me a lot of this novel’s predecessor, TEXASVILLE, as McMurtry dips us once again into the chaos that is the home life of Duane Moore. I laughed out loud several times during those initial pages. But the novel slowly shifts over the first 100 pages and at chapter 12 I feel we get the thematic core of the text. It reads like a modern, and more accessible, Thoreau. I found it interesting and a little unnerving. Much like Thoreau himself, if you take the time to think on his writings. I mean, what person of middle age when they read a line like this- “Without exactly knowing it he had reached a point in his life where he had to live differently if he was to live at all…”- does not stop in their tracks with at least a little pang of recognition?
I had such an odd experience with this text. Once again with McMurtry I was stunned by how succinctly, and accurately, he depicts the capriciousness of life. It kicks the reader in the gut. There is a death in this book (that comes out of nowhere) that affected me like no death I’ve encountered in my recent fiction reading. I am still not sure why, or how it happened, but it did. I was shocked, and a little sad at something that was not at all real, yet so very true to life.
Quotes:
• “The thought of his own ignorance made him feel a little guilty.”
• “Sex was one of those things that seemed to inhabit a no-man’s-land beyond explanation or excuse.”
• “He wanted to be out of town, beyond the ghosts that lived in his memory.”
• “Love’s mostly suffering anyway.”
• “They were all doing more or less exactly what they should be doing-wanting, living, getting, squeezing as much as possible out of their little moments…”
• “He had other things to do, though it would not have been easy for him to say what the other things were.”
• “…all he knew at the moment was that his desires lay somewhere in the spacious realm of unsatisfied curiosity.”
• “Some crazy people are perfectly happy being crazy.”
• “He did not want to be a tumbleweed, sent skittering in his mind by every sharp breeze that life blew up.”
• “Everybody loses something as they go along in life.”
This novel is melancholy, yet not depressing. It is rather contemplative. And that can scare some readers who maybe don’t want to think a little bit about their own life. When Duane muses this sentiment, the reader sympathizes. “He realized that for the first time in his life he had too much time to think; of course he had wanted more time to think, but that was probably because he hadn’t realized how tricky thinking could be.”
There were times that DUANE’S DEPRESSED just soared emotionally. It may not be for everyone, but there are moments of great depth and insight in this novel.
March 11, 2010
Once in a great while, the resonance of a book takes you by the collar and shakes you like a dog with a sock. This is one of those for me. Maybe it wouldn't have been this way a year ago or a month from now or if I had eaten differently this past week, but I just finished this book and I'm a wreck. It's hilarious. It's sad. And hardest of all for me right now, it's a mirror.
This business of the importance of who you are at the moment you read something (or see a movie, or listen to a song) interests me. But it's not just your mood—part of the job of the artist is to set that mood, after all, even though it's an imperfect craft—it's also bigger, as in, your time of life. I got a lot more out of reading Moby-Dick in my thirties than when it was assigned in my teens; and I think I got gobsmacked by this book partly because I'm over 50 and I'm a father. I bet if I'd read this right after the Melville, I'd have given it only four stars.
I'm also amazed by the craft of this thing. McMurtry's Duane is a good man, deeply introspective (though unused to it), acting at maximum capacity. How the author keeps these plates spinning is a thing of beauty. It should not be that interesting to be inside the head of a 60+ uneducated Texas oil-man who is trying to find himself, but I was breathless with wonder throughout. Maybe it's my own existential angst, but that can't be all of it. The guy can write the hell out of a character.
The blurb: One day Duane Moore decides he's tired of riding in his pickup and that he'll start walking. Everywhere. And the citizens of Thalia, Texas, especially his wife Karla, think he's off his rocker. You can get more of an idea of the book reading other reviews; what I haven't seen but thought as I read it is that this is a funnier, deeper, Texas revisiting of some of the themes of Rabbit Run and related to the escaping-mom novels of Anne Tyler.
This business of the importance of who you are at the moment you read something (or see a movie, or listen to a song) interests me. But it's not just your mood—part of the job of the artist is to set that mood, after all, even though it's an imperfect craft—it's also bigger, as in, your time of life. I got a lot more out of reading Moby-Dick in my thirties than when it was assigned in my teens; and I think I got gobsmacked by this book partly because I'm over 50 and I'm a father. I bet if I'd read this right after the Melville, I'd have given it only four stars.
I'm also amazed by the craft of this thing. McMurtry's Duane is a good man, deeply introspective (though unused to it), acting at maximum capacity. How the author keeps these plates spinning is a thing of beauty. It should not be that interesting to be inside the head of a 60+ uneducated Texas oil-man who is trying to find himself, but I was breathless with wonder throughout. Maybe it's my own existential angst, but that can't be all of it. The guy can write the hell out of a character.
The blurb: One day Duane Moore decides he's tired of riding in his pickup and that he'll start walking. Everywhere. And the citizens of Thalia, Texas, especially his wife Karla, think he's off his rocker. You can get more of an idea of the book reading other reviews; what I haven't seen but thought as I read it is that this is a funnier, deeper, Texas revisiting of some of the themes of Rabbit Run and related to the escaping-mom novels of Anne Tyler.
September 30, 2024
”You took care of your parent but you didn’t really take care of yourself. You were born with a good brain but you didn’t train it. Then one day you noticed that you were sixty-two and you and your good brain had spent a lifetime riding around in pickups, not thinking about much. You haven’t been to Egypt. You haven’t been anywhere. What you ended up with was hard work and family life. That’s enough for some people but I don’t think you really feel that it was enough for you, Duane.”
There was a silence.
“People who realise they had the capacity to do more than they’ve done usually feel cheated,” she said. “Even if they mainly have only themselves to blame, they still feel cheated when they come around a curve in the road and start thinking about the end of their life.
I think you feel profoundly cheated, Duane,” she added. Then she stopped.
I’ve not read all of Larry McMurtry’s novels, but I’ve read a large enough sample to feel comfortable in stating that there is never too much distance between the absurd and the profound in his writing. It’s either a skill, or a trait, or a tendency or a flaw of his work - depending on both the reader’s perspective and the balance of each individual book - but it’s something notable and consistent in his fictional point-of-view.
This is one of his more profound books, and all the better for it - at least in my humble opinion. In many ways, it follows the arc of a spiritual journey. I might even describe Duane Moore - a character that McMurtry first established in The Last Picture Show - as a sort of Siddhartha of the Texas Panhandle. He first renounces pickup trucks, and decides to walk everywhere, and his withdrawal from Thalia society and his own chaotic family life follows close on the heels of that initial decision. He engages in fasting and a retreat into the wilderness; he renunciates work and family responsibility; he creates a garden, and he cultivates the garden of his own mind. The entire book is really about Duane’s journey towards self-knowledge, but always lightened or skewed maybe by that characteristic Duane-ish self-deprecation and McMurtry-ish sense of the absurd.
I don’t think it’s necessary to know something of the two preceding Thalia novels - Thalia being the small town based on McMurtry’s own hometown of Archer City - but it is beneficial and probably more emotionally rewarding.
I would also add that it’s not necessary to be looking at the last third of your life when you read this book, but I suspect the book will speak to you more if that is the case.
4.5 stars
For me, this novel sits pretty close to the best novels of McMurtry’s significant but admittedly uneven output.
November 27, 2024
My wish for 2025 is simple: Goodreads gives half-star options so I can give this a 3.5
November 18, 2017
Re-reading this novel for my bookclub was a treat. It had been long enough since the first time that my experience was similar to a first reading. We were introduced to Duane via The Last Picture Show, reencountered him in Texasville as a middle aged man, and here he is in his 60's, feeling overwhelmed with family whose members can't seem to get out on their own. This progression reminded me of Updike and the continuation of his Rabbit series which I believe began as a standalone, but continued to ripen as his creator matured. The same is true with McMurtry and Duane, his creation, and the various denizens of the small Texas town where they continue to live. I was delighted to learn there are two further installments.
July 10, 2018
A very rare Did Not Finish. I just can't handle another page of pure silliness. The Last Picture Show was great. Texasville was 2nd in the series, set some decades on down the road. Where The Last Picture Show was serious and real, Texasville was ridiculous. I kept reading because someone had told me that Book 3, Duane's Depressed, got better. I generally love McMurtry, so I slogged through the silliness of Texasville and finished with great relief. I took a break, read another book, then returned to the series. The second I started Duane's Depressed, I saw that the whole 3 ring circus was back, and in full effect. Here comes the clown car!! The characters and situations are infuriatingly silly. Even the dog is silly. I know people - but I have never known a person to act as silly as these people act. Not just one or two characters, mind, but ALL of the characters - an entire town filled with silly, ridiculous people. I have dogs, have had many dogs. Not one dog that I have ever owned is as silly as the dog in this book (who is descended from the silly dog from the last book). Enough with the whole town full of sorry, silly, comic strip characters! May they enjoy the Thalia Dairy Queen forever. I utterly refuse to read any more.
December 29, 2020
Very good and sad. Sad because of how depressed Duane is the whole time.
May 16, 2020
I only give five stars when somebody blows my socks off. I listened to the audio version, beautifully read by Joe Barrett. This book is worth reading (or listening to) twice.
June 4, 2019
Yesterday was Larry McMurtry's 83rd go round so here's to ya Larr ah wee dram's whisk! This book and "The Soprano's" TV series born together in 1999's culture ain't it funny the both Poo Bah's skulking off to their skirty shrinks for to unburden a toot. The Proustian gimmick to get at memory and existential loss played well form to sluice into denouement an fade to sunset.
March 10, 2022
Got better with every page and finished with a really affecting emotional finale for me
October 30, 2020
Duane's Depressed • by Larry McMurtry
The entertaining and tragic story of 62-year-old Duane Moore who upon returning home one day takes notice of his cluttered carport and the feeling of being imprisoned, as he drives his truck--everywhere. He feels he has wasted his life behind the wheel of that truck. To combat his sense of futility he hides his truck keys in an old mug and determines, from now on, to walk wherever he needs to go.
This "walking" alarms the residence of his town Thalia, Texas (a truck driving town) and his family, especially his wife Karla. Duane is a man of means, he has no advanced education, but owns a prosperous oil company, has over 20 employees and lives in the finest house in Thalia. Duane and Karla are still sharing their home with their four, often ne'er-do-well, adult children and as many as nine grandchildren.
Karla suggests they try marriage counseling. She believes her husband is clinically depressed or suffering a late onset midlife crisis. Duane assures the family he's
walking for the health benefits and time to think. Soon the walking is not enough. He does feel in crisis. Duane turns the oil company over to his 35-year-old son Dickie (now out of drug-rehab, again) and takes up living at his rustic cabin 6 miles from his home. Eventually, he begins seeing the psychiatrist Dr. Honor Carmichael who suggests he buy a bicycle for faster travel when needed.
Just as he begins to think he may get better, Karla is killed in a car wreck. The progression of the story to this point has been entertaining and informative. As Duane walks about we are introduced to: various townsfolk; his new obsession against litter; dealing with his dog and traveling longer distances. The sudden death of his wife is significantly emotional for the reader and the family; it also ends his expensive counseling sessions for several months.
It's an unusual novel walking a line between humorous, eccentric characters and dealing with a serious bout of depression. Duane's psychiatrist is expensive and honest. She tells him he'll be paying many thousands of dollars and 2 years from now, may still not understand what brought him to this mental state.
Duane's shrink recommends reading Remembrance of Things Past (all 3 volumes) by Marcel Proust. He doesn't get much out of the long story of spoiled, finicky people in Paris. He plants a garden in Karla's memory; giving the produce to the poor and has the first good cry of his life. These prove to be quite therapeutic.
Duane thinks he's in love with doctor Carmichael. Here the author misses the opportunity to dissuade all such adolescent confusion of lust versus love. The doctor does not inform him that infatuation is only feelings that come and go--love being a commitment that is not dependent on feelings. In the end he takes the long-sought trip to see the pyramids.
There's some superb writing here and it's surprisingly well done using the characters of Thaila, Texas. If you're not a fan of McMurtry, I would recommend trying Duane's Depressed.
Mostly excellent.
The Last Picture Show Series (5 books)
1. The Last Picture Show (1966)
A raunchy tale of Duane as a high school senior in the 1950s and his pals, set in the small North Texas town of Thalia.
2. Texasville (1987)
30 years later 1984, Duane and family are living the good life from years in the booming oil business, but now the bust of the 1980s has left him on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing for it, but to sling eggs at the town's centennial party.
● 3. Duane's Depressed (1999)
4. When the Light Goes (2007)
A short sequel to Duane's Depressed. Duane, back from vacation finds his hometown changing, his family dispersed and he's suffering from a heart condition, but it doesn't prevent the aging oil man from engaging in raunchy trysts.
5. Rhino Ranch (2009)
Back to Thalia, Texas where Duane visits his hometown while his lovely young wife is out of the country on business. She gives him a call just to say she's leaving him for someone else. In Thalia, Duane befriends a resolute billionairess trying to rescue endangered rhinos and his old friends and acquaintances continue to die off.
•
The entertaining and tragic story of 62-year-old Duane Moore who upon returning home one day takes notice of his cluttered carport and the feeling of being imprisoned, as he drives his truck--everywhere. He feels he has wasted his life behind the wheel of that truck. To combat his sense of futility he hides his truck keys in an old mug and determines, from now on, to walk wherever he needs to go.
This "walking" alarms the residence of his town Thalia, Texas (a truck driving town) and his family, especially his wife Karla. Duane is a man of means, he has no advanced education, but owns a prosperous oil company, has over 20 employees and lives in the finest house in Thalia. Duane and Karla are still sharing their home with their four, often ne'er-do-well, adult children and as many as nine grandchildren.
Karla suggests they try marriage counseling. She believes her husband is clinically depressed or suffering a late onset midlife crisis. Duane assures the family he's
walking for the health benefits and time to think. Soon the walking is not enough. He does feel in crisis. Duane turns the oil company over to his 35-year-old son Dickie (now out of drug-rehab, again) and takes up living at his rustic cabin 6 miles from his home. Eventually, he begins seeing the psychiatrist Dr. Honor Carmichael who suggests he buy a bicycle for faster travel when needed.
Just as he begins to think he may get better, Karla is killed in a car wreck. The progression of the story to this point has been entertaining and informative. As Duane walks about we are introduced to: various townsfolk; his new obsession against litter; dealing with his dog and traveling longer distances. The sudden death of his wife is significantly emotional for the reader and the family; it also ends his expensive counseling sessions for several months.
It's an unusual novel walking a line between humorous, eccentric characters and dealing with a serious bout of depression. Duane's psychiatrist is expensive and honest. She tells him he'll be paying many thousands of dollars and 2 years from now, may still not understand what brought him to this mental state.
Duane's shrink recommends reading Remembrance of Things Past (all 3 volumes) by Marcel Proust. He doesn't get much out of the long story of spoiled, finicky people in Paris. He plants a garden in Karla's memory; giving the produce to the poor and has the first good cry of his life. These prove to be quite therapeutic.
Duane thinks he's in love with doctor Carmichael. Here the author misses the opportunity to dissuade all such adolescent confusion of lust versus love. The doctor does not inform him that infatuation is only feelings that come and go--love being a commitment that is not dependent on feelings. In the end he takes the long-sought trip to see the pyramids.
There's some superb writing here and it's surprisingly well done using the characters of Thaila, Texas. If you're not a fan of McMurtry, I would recommend trying Duane's Depressed.
Mostly excellent.
The Last Picture Show Series (5 books)
1. The Last Picture Show (1966)
A raunchy tale of Duane as a high school senior in the 1950s and his pals, set in the small North Texas town of Thalia.
2. Texasville (1987)
30 years later 1984, Duane and family are living the good life from years in the booming oil business, but now the bust of the 1980s has left him on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing for it, but to sling eggs at the town's centennial party.
● 3. Duane's Depressed (1999)
4. When the Light Goes (2007)
A short sequel to Duane's Depressed. Duane, back from vacation finds his hometown changing, his family dispersed and he's suffering from a heart condition, but it doesn't prevent the aging oil man from engaging in raunchy trysts.
5. Rhino Ranch (2009)
Back to Thalia, Texas where Duane visits his hometown while his lovely young wife is out of the country on business. She gives him a call just to say she's leaving him for someone else. In Thalia, Duane befriends a resolute billionairess trying to rescue endangered rhinos and his old friends and acquaintances continue to die off.
•
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2013
Larry McMurtry wrote an article for the Texas Monthly's February 2013 issue, called Horsemen, Goodbye. It was mostly a promotional piece for his writings, most of which I haven't read. I learned about Duane's Depressed in this article. He was going on about how much he liked Houston when he mentioned it. "I also set maybe my best novel, Terms of Endearment, in Houston (Though Duane's Depressed is maybe as good.)"
I had seen the movie Terms of Endearment, but never heard of Duane's Depressed, so I decided to read the latter, possibly because I have a friend named Duane.
McMurtry may be at his best when describing his characters, and this novel is no exception. His characterizations are lively and memorable, including the dog Shorty, but this book is not about the colorful characters as much as it is about Duane being alone and seeing a psychiatrist, or not. This is not McMurtry's long suit.
Thoreau's Walden Pond and Proust's Remembrances of Things Past become plot elements. Proust especially.
I liked the book, but not to a great degree. I get tired of McMurtry's rambling style after awhile. Nevertheless, I learned that he wrote two more books about Duane Moore since Duane's Depressed. I'll probably read them when I get a chance.
I had seen the movie Terms of Endearment, but never heard of Duane's Depressed, so I decided to read the latter, possibly because I have a friend named Duane.
McMurtry may be at his best when describing his characters, and this novel is no exception. His characterizations are lively and memorable, including the dog Shorty, but this book is not about the colorful characters as much as it is about Duane being alone and seeing a psychiatrist, or not. This is not McMurtry's long suit.
Thoreau's Walden Pond and Proust's Remembrances of Things Past become plot elements. Proust especially.
I liked the book, but not to a great degree. I get tired of McMurtry's rambling style after awhile. Nevertheless, I learned that he wrote two more books about Duane Moore since Duane's Depressed. I'll probably read them when I get a chance.
September 20, 2018
Got through several chapters with nothing happening except (protagonist) Duane taking a walk and the whole town getting in a uproar about it. The whole little town. Silly. I quit reading.
I am a native Texan. I've lived in West, Central, and South Texas. I've met families with drug problems, but it was never a shallow topic of conversation at the dinner table. People were worried. People were arrested or worse, committed suicide. Not Duane's family. It's just a normal topic. McMurtry paints his characters as just past the brink of insanity and they collude in not noticing.
The book reads like a play, too - mainly dialogue - and attempts humor. But the humor is immature and just a distraction from the nothingness of the plot. The characters, because of their absurd inanity were in varying degrees annoying, and because there is no depth of character, the humor sets the book as a cartoon.
Lonesome Dove was funny, but there were ranges in the characters and something actually happened. This book is a far cry from that.
I am a native Texan. I've lived in West, Central, and South Texas. I've met families with drug problems, but it was never a shallow topic of conversation at the dinner table. People were worried. People were arrested or worse, committed suicide. Not Duane's family. It's just a normal topic. McMurtry paints his characters as just past the brink of insanity and they collude in not noticing.
The book reads like a play, too - mainly dialogue - and attempts humor. But the humor is immature and just a distraction from the nothingness of the plot. The characters, because of their absurd inanity were in varying degrees annoying, and because there is no depth of character, the humor sets the book as a cartoon.
Lonesome Dove was funny, but there were ranges in the characters and something actually happened. This book is a far cry from that.
November 25, 2024
4.5 stars.
I was very hesitant going into this after reading the crazy mess that was "Texasville," but honestly this might be one of my favorite books I've read this year. Duane is in such a completely different place from the beginning of this novel than the end of it. Poor guy. He decides one day that he's going to stop driving and start walking. Eventually, after lots of therapy, he realizes that this choice was more about the dissatisfaction he feels with his life and the terrifying feeling that he's wasted his life. If "Texasville" was all about jokes, this book is all about heart and what it means to be alive.
"Duane's Depressed" does a great job of immersing us in Duane's feelings and the small town that he lives in. The first two-thirds of the book was my favorite as we watched him try to break up his mundane, routine-driven life and combat the nosiness of his neighbors and family who were all baffled as to why he's turned his life upside down. I loved that my favorite Thalia resident, Karla, returns along with most of the other characters (RIP Jacey).
Unfortunately, I did start reading both of the sequels to this installment and had to put them both down. "When the Light Goes" felt more like a weird fan fiction about Duane's love life and "Rhino Ranch" just didn't go anywhere for me. I think these books work best as a trilogy anyway.
I think this would make a great book to circle back to in a few years and see how time has changed my perspective on it. It's a stark contrast to the coming-of-age story of these characters in "Last Picture Show" and I've loved watching these small-town families and the town of Thalia grow and change over the course of these three books.
I was very hesitant going into this after reading the crazy mess that was "Texasville," but honestly this might be one of my favorite books I've read this year. Duane is in such a completely different place from the beginning of this novel than the end of it. Poor guy. He decides one day that he's going to stop driving and start walking. Eventually, after lots of therapy, he realizes that this choice was more about the dissatisfaction he feels with his life and the terrifying feeling that he's wasted his life. If "Texasville" was all about jokes, this book is all about heart and what it means to be alive.
"Duane's Depressed" does a great job of immersing us in Duane's feelings and the small town that he lives in. The first two-thirds of the book was my favorite as we watched him try to break up his mundane, routine-driven life and combat the nosiness of his neighbors and family who were all baffled as to why he's turned his life upside down. I loved that my favorite Thalia resident, Karla, returns along with most of the other characters (RIP Jacey).
Unfortunately, I did start reading both of the sequels to this installment and had to put them both down. "When the Light Goes" felt more like a weird fan fiction about Duane's love life and "Rhino Ranch" just didn't go anywhere for me. I think these books work best as a trilogy anyway.
I think this would make a great book to circle back to in a few years and see how time has changed my perspective on it. It's a stark contrast to the coming-of-age story of these characters in "Last Picture Show" and I've loved watching these small-town families and the town of Thalia grow and change over the course of these three books.
April 6, 2022
This is the third book of what I'll call The Last Picture Show trilogy. I read it many years ago, and re-read it mainly because I remembered the protagonist, who had decided as a 62 year old man, to stop riding in motorized vehicles and to walk and bicycle everywhere he went, and to live in a spartan cabin on his property (he is an oilman with plenty of money), and to reflect on his life, read through Proust's In Search of Lost Memory at the recommendation of his therapist. Whew. I recently tried to read said Proust book, 3500 pages, and gave up after 30 pages ;-)
If you've read much of McMurtry (lots of people have read Lonesome Dove), you know not much happens in the way of plot and action (LD excepted), or it happens very slowly; the focus is more on character growth and evolution.
I liked the book a lot, LM could be really funny in a rural Texas way, and at this stage in my life the book was like sitting with an old friend with whom I could relax and relate, seeking solitude, nature, and simplicity. I'm now going to re-read The Last Picture Show; the first time I read it, probably 30 years ago, I wrote my first ever fan letter, tears flowing, I remember it as really powerful. I tried once to read the second book, Texasville, hated it and didn't get very far, I'll give it another shot, too.
If you've read much of McMurtry (lots of people have read Lonesome Dove), you know not much happens in the way of plot and action (LD excepted), or it happens very slowly; the focus is more on character growth and evolution.
I liked the book a lot, LM could be really funny in a rural Texas way, and at this stage in my life the book was like sitting with an old friend with whom I could relax and relate, seeking solitude, nature, and simplicity. I'm now going to re-read The Last Picture Show; the first time I read it, probably 30 years ago, I wrote my first ever fan letter, tears flowing, I remember it as really powerful. I tried once to read the second book, Texasville, hated it and didn't get very far, I'll give it another shot, too.
January 19, 2025
This is the final work of a trilogy involving Duane Moore and his hometown of Thalia, Texas, a town that is dying. Duane became of age in the first work, "The Last Picture Show" married and became a wealthy in the oil business in "Texasville." He has a had a boom to bust life and feels unfulfilled while he is in his sixties. He wants more, knowing that there is a whole world out there that he has not seen and done. His wife, Karla, has problems of her own. He children suffer also, as adults they have problems with drugs, crime, and violence. Karla dies suddenly. He literally "drops out" to live life as a hermit. Through a beautiful psychiatrist that he falls in love with but cannot have, Duane manages to break the bonds that have been holding him. This is a very mature novel with humor and sadness. Its likeable characters come to life
April 27, 2025
Can one overcome the feelings of futility and regret late in life?
P 280 (hardback): “ …he had energy, he was not dumb, he was capable of discipline, he had a healthy will-and yet he missed and missed and missed. There were no excuses-he had not been forced to live as he had-and there could be no remedy. He just had not seen clearly enough into the arena of life, had not fully appreciated the opportunities it offered, had not tried to rise above his limited upbringing in ways that he could have and should have.”
P 283: “‘You’ve just described a very common problem…Everyone who survives to a certain age wakes up one day to realize that they’re old, or about to be. They wonder where the years went, and why they didn’t do more with them. They feel regret. They wish they could have one more chance to ring the bell-realize some ambition, achieve something they might have achieved. No one wants to think it’s all been just futile striving.’…’that’s the human condition. It’s been that way for most of the people who have ever lived on this earth.’”
P 280 (hardback): “ …he had energy, he was not dumb, he was capable of discipline, he had a healthy will-and yet he missed and missed and missed. There were no excuses-he had not been forced to live as he had-and there could be no remedy. He just had not seen clearly enough into the arena of life, had not fully appreciated the opportunities it offered, had not tried to rise above his limited upbringing in ways that he could have and should have.”
P 283: “‘You’ve just described a very common problem…Everyone who survives to a certain age wakes up one day to realize that they’re old, or about to be. They wonder where the years went, and why they didn’t do more with them. They feel regret. They wish they could have one more chance to ring the bell-realize some ambition, achieve something they might have achieved. No one wants to think it’s all been just futile striving.’…’that’s the human condition. It’s been that way for most of the people who have ever lived on this earth.’”
April 2, 2022
I'm so glad I stuck with the series, because this one was better than Last Picture Show. It might be one of the most balanced narratives I've ever read. It took the melancholy and somber tone of Last Picture Show, sprinkled it with some of the zany characters and eccentricities established in Texasville, and created something magical. And Duane changed! A lot! Like an actual fully developed character. Turns out there were two more books in the series, so hopefully the immersive, "in the zone" reading will continue. In any case, I think I've become a die-hard McMurtry fan. (I just bought Lonesome Dove. 900 pages 😳)
January 2, 2025
I have come to know and appreciate the characters from fictional Thalia. McMurtry has singled handedly made me fascinated of small town Texas living. The matter-of-fact way the characters in all of his books speak and live is both commendable and infuriating but it is really McMurtry’s writing style that has kept me engaged. He shows that even happenings in life that wouldn’t necessarily be extremely exciting can still be emotionally charged. He had a great pulse on day to day living. I am interested to see where he takes the story of Duane in the final two books but finishing this series is going to be bittersweet.
October 27, 2025
If you saw or read the story, the last picture show by Larry Mcmurtry, you will remember some of the characters in Duane's life as he deals with his depression. However, those memories are not as important as his current life and his diving into the reason for his depression. i loved this book as much as the love I had for the previous book, The Boys.
October 18, 2020
This is the third installment of McMurtry’s Thalia, TX story. I liked this one the best of the three that I have read (The Last Picture Show, and Texasville), and would have given it 3.5 stars if that was possible. At times funny, at other times sad, it gives insight into a 62-year old man looking back on his life, as he wonders what it was all about.
June 13, 2024
A great novel with a terrible title. One wonders how large a readership this would have had if it had a better title.
November 7, 2022
Duane’s Depressed is a (relatively) late contender for one of McMurtry’s best books, certainly the best of the Duane Moore books so far. Also, despite being the third in a series, I think it could be a good entry point into McMurtry’s world. Duane is now in his 60s and is coming late to a midlife crisis; he locks his pick up truck, decides he’ll walk everywhere from now on, and moves out of the house occupied by his wife, children, and grandchildren for a spartan cabin. Everyone thinks he’s going crazy, but the book is a fine portrait of a man looking back on his life and feeling disappointed. Partway through the novel, McMurtry treats us to one of his patented heart rending twists, and the final third deals magnificently with grief and recovery. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve never read a writer who handles death as beautifully as Larry McMurtry. And, in each of his novels that feature poignant character deaths, he always manages to handle them uniquely, finding some new angle on the whole mortality conundrum. But the question always recurs: how do the survivors of a loved one’s death move on? How do they continue to live? Seeing Duane Moore, who was already reevaluating every aspect of his life, ask these questions is cathartic and poignant. A real high point in McMurtry’s bibliography.
April 14, 2010
I picked this book up at a library book sale because it looked interesting, and I have enjoyed other novels by Larry McMurtry. Unfortunately, I learned that this is the third in a trilogy, so I have read the last before the first and the second...and enjoyed it immensely!
Duane Moore is a successful businessman with a quirky family and a comfortable as an-old-pair-of-slippers marriage, who suddenly begins to question his purpose and worth in life. One day he just parks his pick-up, leaves the keys in a dish in the kitchen, and refuses to travel by any other way but on foot or on his bicycle. Thus begins his trek to find his purpose... and so begins this very funny and poignant story.
Just so you’ll know, I do intend to put my own reading life in order by enjoying the rest of this McMurtry trilogy…the first one, and then the second.
Duane Moore is a successful businessman with a quirky family and a comfortable as an-old-pair-of-slippers marriage, who suddenly begins to question his purpose and worth in life. One day he just parks his pick-up, leaves the keys in a dish in the kitchen, and refuses to travel by any other way but on foot or on his bicycle. Thus begins his trek to find his purpose... and so begins this very funny and poignant story.
Just so you’ll know, I do intend to put my own reading life in order by enjoying the rest of this McMurtry trilogy…the first one, and then the second.
January 5, 2009
I gave it 4 stars because Larry McMurtry is one of my favorite authors of all time. I started reading him with Lonesome Dove in my late 20s, and as then, this book did not disappoint. He nails Texan culture and characters, and I can hear each character talking. I've heard them all before in real life! You'd like it if you like Texana, but it also includes insight into the human plight along with the humor. It was a fun read.
January 20, 2016
3.5 ***
This is the third book in the series of novels that explore the lives of the residents of Thalia Texas. Duane Moore is 62 and a successful oilman, married, with 4 children and 9 grandchildren. One day he parks his pick-up truck and starts walking, becoming the subject of town gossip and speculation, and completely baffling his wife, Karla. Duane’s “mid-life crisis” and search for a meaningful life forms the central plot of this work.
This is the third book in the series of novels that explore the lives of the residents of Thalia Texas. Duane Moore is 62 and a successful oilman, married, with 4 children and 9 grandchildren. One day he parks his pick-up truck and starts walking, becoming the subject of town gossip and speculation, and completely baffling his wife, Karla. Duane’s “mid-life crisis” and search for a meaningful life forms the central plot of this work.
April 6, 2009
I sobbed like a baby at the end.
June 1, 2015
After really enjoying the humor and odd stories of "Texasville" this was a disappointment.
"..and that's all I have to say about that.." ~ Forrest Gump
"..and that's all I have to say about that.." ~ Forrest Gump
January 17, 2020
More of the same as the Texasville ...................
August 7, 2024
Duane's Depressed is a resigned masterpiece of anti-consumerism. It ends with a drive off a cliff, but the voice isn't action packed but marginal, commonplace, lazily impulsive. It's brilliant. This is the account of Duane Moore's sixth decade. Here's Cosmoetica's Dan Schneider describing the writing:
"Proust’s sentence structure can impress, but it can also bore. Much of the work is like riding a rollercoaster- there are a few pages of breathtaking excitement when the ‘moment’ described is in full fall from the top, but the long slow climb to the next peak is often excruciating." (http://www.cosmoetica.com/b364-des303...)
I'm kidding— this is one of the books-within-Duane's Depressed: A Remembrance of Things Past. Duane's psychotherapist eventually assigns it to him, but not before he goes searching for the other, Thoreau's Walden, earlier in the book. McMurtry's rollercoaster is lapidary— things float along, or drop by— the rumination happens beyond the edges of the book.
Like Proust, Duane has never left home, and it's all gonna remind him of something: the book's episodes are marginal, off-center, and second-hand moments. He is also reminded about the ways in which his life may or may not be just a lot of dawdling around. Thalia is a beautiful canvas, and in McMurtry's masterly hands, the small town "good times" parade keeps rolling. Here at its end, the discussion of how exciting these moments were and, now, are, thanks to being enshrined in the story. It's also about how these moments identify with us as much as we identify with them— for example, Daune is instantly considered "available" when Thalia-ites begin thinking that he must have gotten into a fight with Karla and he is now on the market; Duane remains king of the town for all his life.
If memory and Proust win the day for me, then the evocation of Walden sounds like a false front. As it seems for all of the Thalia trilogy, the character's lives are grinding toward an inevitable end. Here, in the final installment, humanity itself is ending. Remember I said that all the scenes are second-hand moments? Well, these have a quality of moving very fast. McMurtry writes to you as if you have your feet up, but the time is leaking out. Fleeting scenes of overwhelming significance are being brought to the reader (and Duane) through the tertiary characters that populate McMurtry's writing, or the hearsay atmosphere of the town. This "end" for McMurtry is time draining through simple, boring, exhausted moments of life, helped along by jabs into your story that erode a barrier even more. Where to go, then?
To the woods…and though there's really no woods, Duane has a cabin on some oil land. Duane's flock of grandchildren who adore him and Karla, have filled the carport with plastic toys, jammed in among yard supplies and other accumulations of life. Duane sees this, driving home from work one day, so, he places his keys in a chipped coffee cup, and doesn't drive for the rest of the novel. To North Texans apparently this is tantamount to insanity. Characters spend the book discerning what exactly is happening to Duane. Meanwhile, he drinks coffee, reunites with his dog, wears a poncho, sits out in the rain on a lawn chair, walks, dabbles in woodworking. Then, he abandons Walden— doesn't find it necessary to finish. (Then, he has truck with a lesbian psychoanalyst).
Truly, it's more spiritually Gary Snyder (Duane outside looking at the stars in the poncho) and comically Edward Abbey (stuffing the car battery in the hole by the river to make it look nicer) than Thoreau, yet one is unlikely to get any those two to read in Thalia on the bookshelf, and the environmentalism is centered. A Norther strikes just as Duane decides to take his first walk (a Blue Norther, a storm that hits North Texas b/c air masses from Canada through the Midwest with no geographic features to slow them down). A recovering drug addict takes over the oil company. The heat reported at the Phoenix airport is so hot that planes cannot get lift. The Moore greenhouse succumbs to overheating, as well, and bugs. You get the sense that sooner or later, everyone in the county will eventually die in car accidents. Sonny’s at the hospital because his feet have turned black from not moving— how black? “As black as oil”.
The novel’s publication year, 1999, is fun to play with for its deeper subtlety and pregnant pause at the millennium. It;s a better book if you melt into its hi-lo tension. Its sense of ending. The falling apart and the beauty and charm. Who isn't depressed thinking back on these things? Who hasn't been depressed by the Information Age? Keep reading because pretty soon we won't even be able to walk to work.
"Proust’s sentence structure can impress, but it can also bore. Much of the work is like riding a rollercoaster- there are a few pages of breathtaking excitement when the ‘moment’ described is in full fall from the top, but the long slow climb to the next peak is often excruciating." (http://www.cosmoetica.com/b364-des303...)
I'm kidding— this is one of the books-within-Duane's Depressed: A Remembrance of Things Past. Duane's psychotherapist eventually assigns it to him, but not before he goes searching for the other, Thoreau's Walden, earlier in the book. McMurtry's rollercoaster is lapidary— things float along, or drop by— the rumination happens beyond the edges of the book.
Like Proust, Duane has never left home, and it's all gonna remind him of something: the book's episodes are marginal, off-center, and second-hand moments. He is also reminded about the ways in which his life may or may not be just a lot of dawdling around. Thalia is a beautiful canvas, and in McMurtry's masterly hands, the small town "good times" parade keeps rolling. Here at its end, the discussion of how exciting these moments were and, now, are, thanks to being enshrined in the story. It's also about how these moments identify with us as much as we identify with them— for example, Daune is instantly considered "available" when Thalia-ites begin thinking that he must have gotten into a fight with Karla and he is now on the market; Duane remains king of the town for all his life.
If memory and Proust win the day for me, then the evocation of Walden sounds like a false front. As it seems for all of the Thalia trilogy, the character's lives are grinding toward an inevitable end. Here, in the final installment, humanity itself is ending. Remember I said that all the scenes are second-hand moments? Well, these have a quality of moving very fast. McMurtry writes to you as if you have your feet up, but the time is leaking out. Fleeting scenes of overwhelming significance are being brought to the reader (and Duane) through the tertiary characters that populate McMurtry's writing, or the hearsay atmosphere of the town. This "end" for McMurtry is time draining through simple, boring, exhausted moments of life, helped along by jabs into your story that erode a barrier even more. Where to go, then?
To the woods…and though there's really no woods, Duane has a cabin on some oil land. Duane's flock of grandchildren who adore him and Karla, have filled the carport with plastic toys, jammed in among yard supplies and other accumulations of life. Duane sees this, driving home from work one day, so, he places his keys in a chipped coffee cup, and doesn't drive for the rest of the novel. To North Texans apparently this is tantamount to insanity. Characters spend the book discerning what exactly is happening to Duane. Meanwhile, he drinks coffee, reunites with his dog, wears a poncho, sits out in the rain on a lawn chair, walks, dabbles in woodworking. Then, he abandons Walden— doesn't find it necessary to finish. (Then, he has truck with a lesbian psychoanalyst).
Truly, it's more spiritually Gary Snyder (Duane outside looking at the stars in the poncho) and comically Edward Abbey (stuffing the car battery in the hole by the river to make it look nicer) than Thoreau, yet one is unlikely to get any those two to read in Thalia on the bookshelf, and the environmentalism is centered. A Norther strikes just as Duane decides to take his first walk (a Blue Norther, a storm that hits North Texas b/c air masses from Canada through the Midwest with no geographic features to slow them down). A recovering drug addict takes over the oil company. The heat reported at the Phoenix airport is so hot that planes cannot get lift. The Moore greenhouse succumbs to overheating, as well, and bugs. You get the sense that sooner or later, everyone in the county will eventually die in car accidents. Sonny’s at the hospital because his feet have turned black from not moving— how black? “As black as oil”.
The novel’s publication year, 1999, is fun to play with for its deeper subtlety and pregnant pause at the millennium. It;s a better book if you melt into its hi-lo tension. Its sense of ending. The falling apart and the beauty and charm. Who isn't depressed thinking back on these things? Who hasn't been depressed by the Information Age? Keep reading because pretty soon we won't even be able to walk to work.
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