What do you think?
Rate this book
Houston #1
Moving On
Larry McMurtry’s Moving On, his epic first novel in the acclaimed Houston series, has long been considered a defining tale of “monumental honesty” worthy of great attention (New York Times). Preceding Terms of Endearment by five years, it is essential reading for anyone who appreciates the inherent genius of McMurtry’s late twentieth-century fiction. Moving On centers on the life of Patsy Carpenter, one of his most beloved characters. After calmly finishing a Hershey bar alone in her car, a restless Patsy drives away from her lifeless marriage in search of a greater purpose. In “precise and lyrical prose” (Boston Globe), McMurtry reveals the complex, colorful lives of Pete, the rodeo clown; high-spirited cowboy Sonny Shanks; and impassioned grad student Hank. A critical work of American literature that “presents human drama with sympathy and compassion” (Los Angeles Times), Moving On unfolds a tale of perseverance and emotional survival in the modern-day West.
1008 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Larry McMurtry
181 books3,493 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."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 170 reviews
June 1, 2019
Trying to have an affair in this town would be nerve-wracking as hell, no matter who you are or who it's with. Monogamy must have been invented for dumps like Amarillo.
When Larry McMurtry published Moving On in 1970, his writing was greeted by an angry mob of women, all seemingly armed with rotten tomatoes. He was then properly pelted with figurative produce and literal hate mail and was forced to pull off his ten-gallon hat to ponder his position.
Larry was so confused! Why didn't the world realize how much he loved his protagonist, Patsy Carpenter? Why didn't women the world over love her as he did? Yes, she cried at the drop of a hat, but all women did that, didn't they?
But, after several years of this novel's terrible reception, Mr. McMurtry was forced to concede, “I had inadvertently left a copiously tearful young woman exposed on a lonely beach, just as the tsunami of feminism was about to crash ashore.”
And, instead of being nominated for the National Book Award (as it should have been), Moving On slipped into an obscurity that is every writer's nightmare. Even now, the book is challenging to casually locate on a Goodreads search, unless you include McMurtry's name with the title, and my local library had to sweat a little to find an available copy.
This book's near obscurity makes me want to cry as much as Mr. McMurtry's leading lady does.
And, no, Larry, I don't want to cry because of your belief that “virtually all women cry virtually all the time,” but because I hate for this level of fantastic writing to be relegated to the dark shadows of obscure libraries, or worse, to be rendered out of print.
And, Larry, you were wrong. All women do not cry all of the time, or as often as Patsy does, though I have known two women in my lifetime who have been as prone to tears, proving that a Patsy Carpenter can absolutely be true.
But, let me tell you who did cry, you fabulous son of a bitch: me. I cried throughout this whole goddamned, brilliant masterpiece. And, I cried so hard, I felt gutted. Cried so hard over lines like these:
At night, when some embrace on the late show reminded her that in the real world, as on the TV screen, humans did actually kiss and hold each other and make love she felt humiliated and small, for she was a woman, she had had a baby, she was ready to give such plenty as she had, and yet no man was there to touch her.
I cried again, just typing it, you bastard. Larry, why do you do this to me?
People, don't stumble over Texans and rodeos and crying protagonists here. This is a book about men and women, and how their differences in communication and physical preferences can isolate them so profoundly from the ones they love. It's a brilliant and almost incomparable examination of monogamy and it juxtaposes so many combinations of coupling (and living alone), it makes you realize that any happiness you're ever lucky enough to grasp with your two hands should be popped into your mouth immediately and consumed.
This isn't a novel for people who require action or intrigue (or zombies). This is a book about people and relationships and it's ideal for readers who love writers like Ian McEwan, Ernest Hemingway, John Updike and Graham Greene.
Oh. And for people who can handle a good, gut wrenching cry.
When Larry McMurtry published Moving On in 1970, his writing was greeted by an angry mob of women, all seemingly armed with rotten tomatoes. He was then properly pelted with figurative produce and literal hate mail and was forced to pull off his ten-gallon hat to ponder his position.
Larry was so confused! Why didn't the world realize how much he loved his protagonist, Patsy Carpenter? Why didn't women the world over love her as he did? Yes, she cried at the drop of a hat, but all women did that, didn't they?
But, after several years of this novel's terrible reception, Mr. McMurtry was forced to concede, “I had inadvertently left a copiously tearful young woman exposed on a lonely beach, just as the tsunami of feminism was about to crash ashore.”
And, instead of being nominated for the National Book Award (as it should have been), Moving On slipped into an obscurity that is every writer's nightmare. Even now, the book is challenging to casually locate on a Goodreads search, unless you include McMurtry's name with the title, and my local library had to sweat a little to find an available copy.
This book's near obscurity makes me want to cry as much as Mr. McMurtry's leading lady does.
And, no, Larry, I don't want to cry because of your belief that “virtually all women cry virtually all the time,” but because I hate for this level of fantastic writing to be relegated to the dark shadows of obscure libraries, or worse, to be rendered out of print.
And, Larry, you were wrong. All women do not cry all of the time, or as often as Patsy does, though I have known two women in my lifetime who have been as prone to tears, proving that a Patsy Carpenter can absolutely be true.
But, let me tell you who did cry, you fabulous son of a bitch: me. I cried throughout this whole goddamned, brilliant masterpiece. And, I cried so hard, I felt gutted. Cried so hard over lines like these:
At night, when some embrace on the late show reminded her that in the real world, as on the TV screen, humans did actually kiss and hold each other and make love she felt humiliated and small, for she was a woman, she had had a baby, she was ready to give such plenty as she had, and yet no man was there to touch her.
I cried again, just typing it, you bastard. Larry, why do you do this to me?
People, don't stumble over Texans and rodeos and crying protagonists here. This is a book about men and women, and how their differences in communication and physical preferences can isolate them so profoundly from the ones they love. It's a brilliant and almost incomparable examination of monogamy and it juxtaposes so many combinations of coupling (and living alone), it makes you realize that any happiness you're ever lucky enough to grasp with your two hands should be popped into your mouth immediately and consumed.
This isn't a novel for people who require action or intrigue (or zombies). This is a book about people and relationships and it's ideal for readers who love writers like Ian McEwan, Ernest Hemingway, John Updike and Graham Greene.
Oh. And for people who can handle a good, gut wrenching cry.
August 20, 2019
"She had always supposed she would lead an intense life, one way or another, but it just wasn’t working out that way. She wasn’t starving, but neither was she feasting. Her sensations weren’t very intense, her emotions weren’t very intense, even her imaginings had ceased to be very intense."
Have you ever heard of this book Moving On? I hadn’t, at least not until my dear Goodreads friend Julie wrote an incredibly compelling review over a year ago now. Moving On, in case you didn’t know, was written by Larry McMurtry – yes, THE Larry McMurtry who wrote perhaps the greatest novel of all time – Lonesome Dove! Now, I’m not going to attempt to compare this book to that one, because honestly there are few similarities, except of course the brilliant writing. While Lonesome Dove took me on a breathtaking journey to a time and place that I could never have imagined without the skill of Mr. McMurtry, Moving On, though set in a place I’ve never set foot – the Lone Star State – had a sharp ring of familiarity to it. Whether married or not, any woman that has ever examined her relationships in depth (and who hasn’t, really?), will find some sort of affinity towards Patsy. If you’ve ever felt restless, needing something more but not quite sure what that ‘more’ should be, then this book is for you. Patsy may shed a few extra tears than you do (okay, she actually sheds buckets by book’s end), but please don’t let that deter you. "She cried easily – absurdly easily, she felt. Half the things she cried about were merely silly." She really grows on you rather quickly!
Loneliness, depression, lust and longing, guilt, motherhood – these are some of the themes of this saga. You will meet some cowboys, a rodeo clown, a few graduate school students, and a multimillionaress. You will find that despite the seeming disparateness of these personas, deep down each is pierced with the same hurts and insecurities as the next.
"… she had a strong sense of being involved along with everyone else in the ruin of something. What was being ruined scarcely mattered: a civilization, a generation, or only the summer, or only an evening, or perhaps only themselves. What seemed important was that they were all in it together. No one seemed unhappy, and yet no one was likely to be spared."
While reading Moving On, paranoia struck. Is every single person coveting his neighbor’s wife (or her neighbor’s husband)? Do we all yearn for someone or something that we can’t have? Why is it that human beings are not to be found on any list of animals that mate for life? What secrets to monogamy could the African penguin, the beaver or even the lowly termite have to share with the libidinous male or female of our species?! For a time after finishing this novel, I found myself watching my husband’s eyes more carefully. Towards whom did he slyly glance; where did his eyes linger longer than acceptable? To be fair, I didn’t overlook my own deepest and darkest recesses of the mind.
Through McMurtry’s penetrating vision, Patsy made me laugh and she made me cry. She forced me to scrutinize my own marriage. Fortunately, it came through fairly unscathed as we just passed our twenty-second anniversary just a few short days ago. Read this book if you are all about the characters and less about the action. Read this book if you are a fan of McMurtry and want to try something other than one of his western novels. And read Julie's brilliant review if you want better insights on this author than I could ever hope to offer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"She was two women in two different skins – women of differing minds and differing hearts."
Have you ever heard of this book Moving On? I hadn’t, at least not until my dear Goodreads friend Julie wrote an incredibly compelling review over a year ago now. Moving On, in case you didn’t know, was written by Larry McMurtry – yes, THE Larry McMurtry who wrote perhaps the greatest novel of all time – Lonesome Dove! Now, I’m not going to attempt to compare this book to that one, because honestly there are few similarities, except of course the brilliant writing. While Lonesome Dove took me on a breathtaking journey to a time and place that I could never have imagined without the skill of Mr. McMurtry, Moving On, though set in a place I’ve never set foot – the Lone Star State – had a sharp ring of familiarity to it. Whether married or not, any woman that has ever examined her relationships in depth (and who hasn’t, really?), will find some sort of affinity towards Patsy. If you’ve ever felt restless, needing something more but not quite sure what that ‘more’ should be, then this book is for you. Patsy may shed a few extra tears than you do (okay, she actually sheds buckets by book’s end), but please don’t let that deter you. "She cried easily – absurdly easily, she felt. Half the things she cried about were merely silly." She really grows on you rather quickly!
Loneliness, depression, lust and longing, guilt, motherhood – these are some of the themes of this saga. You will meet some cowboys, a rodeo clown, a few graduate school students, and a multimillionaress. You will find that despite the seeming disparateness of these personas, deep down each is pierced with the same hurts and insecurities as the next.
"… she had a strong sense of being involved along with everyone else in the ruin of something. What was being ruined scarcely mattered: a civilization, a generation, or only the summer, or only an evening, or perhaps only themselves. What seemed important was that they were all in it together. No one seemed unhappy, and yet no one was likely to be spared."
While reading Moving On, paranoia struck. Is every single person coveting his neighbor’s wife (or her neighbor’s husband)? Do we all yearn for someone or something that we can’t have? Why is it that human beings are not to be found on any list of animals that mate for life? What secrets to monogamy could the African penguin, the beaver or even the lowly termite have to share with the libidinous male or female of our species?! For a time after finishing this novel, I found myself watching my husband’s eyes more carefully. Towards whom did he slyly glance; where did his eyes linger longer than acceptable? To be fair, I didn’t overlook my own deepest and darkest recesses of the mind.
Through McMurtry’s penetrating vision, Patsy made me laugh and she made me cry. She forced me to scrutinize my own marriage. Fortunately, it came through fairly unscathed as we just passed our twenty-second anniversary just a few short days ago. Read this book if you are all about the characters and less about the action. Read this book if you are a fan of McMurtry and want to try something other than one of his western novels. And read Julie's brilliant review if you want better insights on this author than I could ever hope to offer: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
"She was two women in two different skins – women of differing minds and differing hearts."
July 25, 2020
“Monogamy must have been invented for dumps like Amarillo.” (4.5 stars)
This is my forth Larry McMurtry novel, my introductory experience being his masterpiece “Lonesome Dove”, which I read last year. “Moving On” is the only book of the other three that has come close to “Dove”. This 800-page novel is mainly from the point of view of Patsy Carpenter, a young Texan woman of education and moderate wealth. Occasionally McMurtry shifts the POV to another character, and I enjoyed the fact that in this long novel the focus shifts when it needs to. It speaks highly of the author’s skill.
“Moving On” is a novel about a relationship. Frustration grips the reader as we watch two people (whose feelings for each other I am still unsure about) as they make life more difficult because of an unwillingness to communicate honestly with each other. The marriage of Jim and Patsy Carpenter is rendered in an artful and interesting manner. McMurtry portrays (without prejudice, another stunning feat) some of the ugliness that a long-term relationship automatically engenders without negating the importance of such relationships. It does not sound like fun reading but I was consistently engaged throughout this book.
Lines like these below will resonate with any reader who has been in a committed long-term relationship, and fought for it. Some last, some do not. I recognized a lot of moments in this book. Some of them I did not want to admit I knew.
* “I want what I want, by god, and I don’t think it’s fair that I should want any less.”
* “When disappointment first began to dawn she tried to hide it from herself. She tried very hard to be in love. Sex was her way of trying and it seemed, for a time, that it might be a sufficient way.”
* “It’s been my observation that resentment lasts longer than love.”
The Dickensian cast of characters swirl around the central couple, creating a dizzying six degrees of separation, and an achingly human world in this novel.
One of my favorite characters, an old rancher, says at one point; “Yeah, a lot happens in a lifetime.” I could not have said it better myself.
This is my forth Larry McMurtry novel, my introductory experience being his masterpiece “Lonesome Dove”, which I read last year. “Moving On” is the only book of the other three that has come close to “Dove”. This 800-page novel is mainly from the point of view of Patsy Carpenter, a young Texan woman of education and moderate wealth. Occasionally McMurtry shifts the POV to another character, and I enjoyed the fact that in this long novel the focus shifts when it needs to. It speaks highly of the author’s skill.
“Moving On” is a novel about a relationship. Frustration grips the reader as we watch two people (whose feelings for each other I am still unsure about) as they make life more difficult because of an unwillingness to communicate honestly with each other. The marriage of Jim and Patsy Carpenter is rendered in an artful and interesting manner. McMurtry portrays (without prejudice, another stunning feat) some of the ugliness that a long-term relationship automatically engenders without negating the importance of such relationships. It does not sound like fun reading but I was consistently engaged throughout this book.
Lines like these below will resonate with any reader who has been in a committed long-term relationship, and fought for it. Some last, some do not. I recognized a lot of moments in this book. Some of them I did not want to admit I knew.
* “I want what I want, by god, and I don’t think it’s fair that I should want any less.”
* “When disappointment first began to dawn she tried to hide it from herself. She tried very hard to be in love. Sex was her way of trying and it seemed, for a time, that it might be a sufficient way.”
* “It’s been my observation that resentment lasts longer than love.”
The Dickensian cast of characters swirl around the central couple, creating a dizzying six degrees of separation, and an achingly human world in this novel.
One of my favorite characters, an old rancher, says at one point; “Yeah, a lot happens in a lifetime.” I could not have said it better myself.
December 29, 2020
From what I can gather after having read four of his novels, Larry McMurtry has to be one of the most versatile writers out there. This story couldn’t be more different from Lonesome Dove or the The Last Picture Show. If it wasn’t for the brilliant writing and OUTSTANDING characterisation I’m sure I would’ve believed this one had been written by someone else. Oh, and also the dialogue! I definitely have to mention the amazing dialogue. Average writers of the world read this novel and learn; this is how you should be doing it; this is how human beings talk, react and interact to and with each other.
Now, and to be completely honest I’ll have to say that I chose to pick this one up only because I had a feeling that it was going to be another winner in my long stretch of five star reads. And it was! It feels so good to know that there are authors I can rely on when I’m not feeling particularly risky and just want to enjoy a good and wonderfully written story packed with believable characters. For me Larry McMurtry is among those writers at the moment. An author I can really rely on because even the weakest story of his I’ve read so far was far far better than most of the crappy (and often pretentious) claptrap being published nowadays.
After loving every single page of a novel like this one it became even clearer to me why I didn’t, don’t and won’t ever enjoy a certain kind of books/stories.
Everything about this novel shines with such honesty that one starts to believe its characters are people we actually know in real life. People who were actually born, breathe, laugh, cry and will eventually die. It doesn’t matter if you like them or not because their humanity is too moving to be ignored.
In one sentence I’d say Larry McMurtry’s Moving on is a (sexy!) literary road trip across America.
I thought about leaving this review as it is but I really want to share a few more things with you, my friends. I can’t help it so here it goes:
Excerpt from page 778:
Hank drove all night toward the plains. The wind grew stronger as he rose from the coast. Sometimes it rocked the cars on the highway. He went through the little silent towns that spotted the darkness. When he got into rolling country he could often see their lights twenty miles away, then lose them, then see them again, and lights of the towns, at a distance in the darkness, distinct as stars, were always more beautiful than the empty towns themselves.
And finally here’s a list of book tittles mentioned for various reasons in the course of this masterpiece:
1. Catch 22
2. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan
3. Pnin
4. A Charmed Life
5. The Decipherment of Linear-B
6. Destry Rides Again
7. Sexus
8. Lolita
9. The Sot-Weed Factor
10. Pamela
11. On the Road
12. Middlemarch
13. Love among the Cannibals
14. The Golden Bough
15. Bonjour Tristesse
16. The Greek Myths
17. The Pocket Book of Modern Verse
18. The Ginger Man
19. The Waste Land
20. The Hobbit
21. Howl
22. The Rights of Infants
23. Essay of Dramatic Poesy
24. Tristram Shandy
25. After Strange Gods
26. Candy
27. The Magic Christian
28. The White Nile
29. Fables of Identity
30. The Hero with a Thousand Faces
31. Wuthering Heights
32. Kama Sutra
33. Paradise Lost As Myth
34. The Armed Vision
35. The Cloud of Unknowing
36. Chaucer
37. Matthew Arnold
38. Punch
39. The Carpetbaggers
40. The Philosophy of Literary Form
41. Angelique
42. The Marriage Art
43. Endgame
44. The Heart of Darkness
45. Anna Karenina
46. The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy, Gentleman
47. Herzog
48. An American Dream
49. The Rise of the Novel
50. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
51. Felix Holt, the Radical
52. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
53. The Egoist
54. The End of the Road
55. The Little Engine that Could
56. Valley of the Dolls
57. Letting Go
58. The Sun Also Rises
59. Crime and Punishment
60. The Idiot
61. Fathers and Sons
62. Lucile
63. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
64. The Maltese Falcon
65. The Big Sleep
66. Beowulf
Now, and to be completely honest I’ll have to say that I chose to pick this one up only because I had a feeling that it was going to be another winner in my long stretch of five star reads. And it was! It feels so good to know that there are authors I can rely on when I’m not feeling particularly risky and just want to enjoy a good and wonderfully written story packed with believable characters. For me Larry McMurtry is among those writers at the moment. An author I can really rely on because even the weakest story of his I’ve read so far was far far better than most of the crappy (and often pretentious) claptrap being published nowadays.
After loving every single page of a novel like this one it became even clearer to me why I didn’t, don’t and won’t ever enjoy a certain kind of books/stories.
Everything about this novel shines with such honesty that one starts to believe its characters are people we actually know in real life. People who were actually born, breathe, laugh, cry and will eventually die. It doesn’t matter if you like them or not because their humanity is too moving to be ignored.
In one sentence I’d say Larry McMurtry’s Moving on is a (sexy!) literary road trip across America.
I thought about leaving this review as it is but I really want to share a few more things with you, my friends. I can’t help it so here it goes:
Excerpt from page 778:
Hank drove all night toward the plains. The wind grew stronger as he rose from the coast. Sometimes it rocked the cars on the highway. He went through the little silent towns that spotted the darkness. When he got into rolling country he could often see their lights twenty miles away, then lose them, then see them again, and lights of the towns, at a distance in the darkness, distinct as stars, were always more beautiful than the empty towns themselves.
And finally here’s a list of book tittles mentioned for various reasons in the course of this masterpiece:
1. Catch 22
2. Incidents of Travel in Yucatan
3. Pnin
4. A Charmed Life
5. The Decipherment of Linear-B
6. Destry Rides Again
7. Sexus
8. Lolita
9. The Sot-Weed Factor
10. Pamela
11. On the Road
12. Middlemarch
13. Love among the Cannibals
14. The Golden Bough
15. Bonjour Tristesse
16. The Greek Myths
17. The Pocket Book of Modern Verse
18. The Ginger Man
19. The Waste Land
20. The Hobbit
21. Howl
22. The Rights of Infants
23. Essay of Dramatic Poesy
24. Tristram Shandy
25. After Strange Gods
26. Candy
27. The Magic Christian
28. The White Nile
29. Fables of Identity
30. The Hero with a Thousand Faces
31. Wuthering Heights
32. Kama Sutra
33. Paradise Lost As Myth
34. The Armed Vision
35. The Cloud of Unknowing
36. Chaucer
37. Matthew Arnold
38. Punch
39. The Carpetbaggers
40. The Philosophy of Literary Form
41. Angelique
42. The Marriage Art
43. Endgame
44. The Heart of Darkness
45. Anna Karenina
46. The Life and Opinions of Tristan Shandy, Gentleman
47. Herzog
48. An American Dream
49. The Rise of the Novel
50. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
51. Felix Holt, the Radical
52. The Ordeal of Richard Feverel
53. The Egoist
54. The End of the Road
55. The Little Engine that Could
56. Valley of the Dolls
57. Letting Go
58. The Sun Also Rises
59. Crime and Punishment
60. The Idiot
61. Fathers and Sons
62. Lucile
63. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
64. The Maltese Falcon
65. The Big Sleep
66. Beowulf
April 13, 2023
Remarkable.
Book/Song Pairing: Moving On (Leonard Cohen) youtu.be/2EkydhgKUPA?t=20
Book/Song Pairing: Moving On (Leonard Cohen) youtu.be/2EkydhgKUPA?t=20
January 19, 2020
Today is the first normal snowy day and it's freezing outside. I wanted Texas weather, where men get sweaty while riding bulls and horses. Do you know how hard it is to go to work on the bus, hold this huge book with 1008 pages along with a backpack and a lunchbox and read? Well, I did.
Mcmurtry is one of the unique writers who manages to create a perfectly natural female character, with no fakeness and artificiality involved, relatable. Not many male writers are able to do it. I loved Patsy and I hated Jim. The only attractive thing for this shitty husband was that he always ordered books with large boxes, but only read part of them and then ordered again. I loved his attitude towards books.
The narration is perfect if you want a slow-paced book, where nothing takes place, you just sit and start to learn about characters. It's kind of psychological satisfaction to savor slowly, before bed, comfortable reading. And the mood of the book! I love how books were mentioned here and there without giving a personal opinion of the author about them, just telling what Patsy or others were thinking. And every time I searched the books to understand what was it about and tried to figure out what Mcmurtry really thinks about them.
The book would be perfect, be it around 300-400 pages. But, no. It was 1008 pages! Damn it. 1008 pages! This is the longest book I have ever finished. And don't you feel a little cheated when you are not fully satisfied with a thick book? It's always easy with 200-page books.
The first 400 pages - pure delight, 5 stars, then it became 4. Still, I liked it. Last 200 pages - I was turned off. Really turned off. Why he had to cram Patsy's sister into the story, at the last minute? It seemed this part was taken from some thriller. I got depressed and disappointed and started to skim-read. I wish this part was not in my edition. Emma reading Updike during the last 10 pages just saved me and brought me back.
I am glad I read it, though. I don't think I will be able to read the other books from the series immediately after this, but a book a year is a good plan.
Mcmurtry is one of the unique writers who manages to create a perfectly natural female character, with no fakeness and artificiality involved, relatable. Not many male writers are able to do it. I loved Patsy and I hated Jim. The only attractive thing for this shitty husband was that he always ordered books with large boxes, but only read part of them and then ordered again. I loved his attitude towards books.
The narration is perfect if you want a slow-paced book, where nothing takes place, you just sit and start to learn about characters. It's kind of psychological satisfaction to savor slowly, before bed, comfortable reading. And the mood of the book! I love how books were mentioned here and there without giving a personal opinion of the author about them, just telling what Patsy or others were thinking. And every time I searched the books to understand what was it about and tried to figure out what Mcmurtry really thinks about them.
The book would be perfect, be it around 300-400 pages. But, no. It was 1008 pages! Damn it. 1008 pages! This is the longest book I have ever finished. And don't you feel a little cheated when you are not fully satisfied with a thick book? It's always easy with 200-page books.
The first 400 pages - pure delight, 5 stars, then it became 4. Still, I liked it. Last 200 pages - I was turned off. Really turned off. Why he had to cram Patsy's sister into the story, at the last minute? It seemed this part was taken from some thriller. I got depressed and disappointed and started to skim-read. I wish this part was not in my edition. Emma reading Updike during the last 10 pages just saved me and brought me back.
I am glad I read it, though. I don't think I will be able to read the other books from the series immediately after this, but a book a year is a good plan.
December 7, 2009
Next to Lonesome Dove, this is McMurtry's best book in my estimation. I think it was his second book. I read it forty years ago and decided to reread it. I liked it then and I liked it now. It's about a failing marriage in the 1960's. It takes place mostly in Texas and revolves around rodeo characters and graduate students at Rice. I've read almost everything by McMurtry. His books generally fall into two categories - very very good or very very bad. (I recommend 'Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen' for an introspective look at his own work) 'Moving On' is in the very good column.
November 3, 2020
I'm going to write my own article and call it phooey on the penis.
This one's for you, Julie.
Moving On was my first McMurtry. I loved it. Terms of Endearment has been one of my favorite movies since I was about ten. We would watch it over and over again at slumber parties and sob. I have sobbed countless times as a teen, college student and adult to this film. Its one of the reasons that I put off reading these books, I felt like I knew it too well. But, it was one the greatest joys for me to spend some time with Emma and Flap. It was like visiting a lost friend. I don't know whether its a good thing or a bad thing but I will always hear everything Emma says in Debra Winger's raspy twang.
So, what made me break and take this book to the beach this summer? Well, my favorite reviewer on here raves about this book every chance she gets. I love reading what this person writes and I trust her opinion, even if I don't always share it. I love her writing so much in my house she is known as my internet girl crush. So, Patsy came to the beach with me. And we had a great time together.
McMurtry writes people so well. Flaws and all. I was emotionally connected to almost every character I met...even if some of those emotions were negative. I was so angry with Patsy's husband I may have a snapped at my own a bit too easily. He is a reader... he gets it.
I loved spending time with these people. At the end of this thousand page tome... I wasn't ready to say goodbye, I wanted more. That's five stars for me. I'll be back, Larry.
This one's for you, Julie.
Moving On was my first McMurtry. I loved it. Terms of Endearment has been one of my favorite movies since I was about ten. We would watch it over and over again at slumber parties and sob. I have sobbed countless times as a teen, college student and adult to this film. Its one of the reasons that I put off reading these books, I felt like I knew it too well. But, it was one the greatest joys for me to spend some time with Emma and Flap. It was like visiting a lost friend. I don't know whether its a good thing or a bad thing but I will always hear everything Emma says in Debra Winger's raspy twang.
So, what made me break and take this book to the beach this summer? Well, my favorite reviewer on here raves about this book every chance she gets. I love reading what this person writes and I trust her opinion, even if I don't always share it. I love her writing so much in my house she is known as my internet girl crush. So, Patsy came to the beach with me. And we had a great time together.
McMurtry writes people so well. Flaws and all. I was emotionally connected to almost every character I met...even if some of those emotions were negative. I was so angry with Patsy's husband I may have a snapped at my own a bit too easily. He is a reader... he gets it.
I loved spending time with these people. At the end of this thousand page tome... I wasn't ready to say goodbye, I wanted more. That's five stars for me. I'll be back, Larry.
August 22, 2024
All book ratings have a subjective element to them, but this one is more subjective than most. It’s not so much that I think this is really a five star book, but it is a five star book for me. Although I’ve read it at least twice before, those readings have predated my time on Goodreads: the first was, memorably, April in 1991 when I found my copy (now battered, and just barely holding together) at Half Price Books in Rice University Village on my reconnoiter trip to be an English literature student in the graduate school there. It was a lucky find, and even though it was set during the late 1960s - around the time of my birth, and 25 years previous to my own arrival in Houston - it seemed like a sign.
Described by one of its early readers as McMurtry’s “love letter to Rice graduate school,” (Larry McMurtry, Tracy Daugherty), it somehow managed to be romantic and nostalgic and bittersweet and I ate it up. Although the details of the plot might get foggy - after all, this is a 800 page whopper of a book which covers not just the English department at Rice, but marriage, parenthood, a Panhandle ranch, the rodeo circuit, Hollywood, and the counterculture scene of San Francisco, all amidst the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s - I never forget the protagonist Patsy Carpenter and all of her confusions and enthusiasms. I never forget the fact that she loves Tristram Shandy, a notoriously difficult 18th century novel that I also read while at Rice, and I never forget the first paragraph of the novel.
There is a lot of detail in the this book and it doesn’t always or even often serve the plot. It offers what McMurtry himself described as “texture,” and either you are a reader who enjoys the texture of what was eaten, what was read, what was worn, what was listened to, how it all smelled, or you don’t. I do - and the lavish details of what Patsy is eating and reading particularly appeal to me. They make for what I think of a “cozy” atmosphere and they really anchor the setting of the book to a time and place. Perhaps I feel this all more keenly as a displaced Texan who once moved to Houston as an impressionable young woman and fell in love - not once, but twice - and then moved away, but forever remained nostalgic for that young, ripe time. I lived in the same neighbourhood as Patsy and her husband Jim and their best friends Emma and Flap Horton and every street name has resonance for me. The very fact that this time of life couldn’t last, and didn’t, adds to its poignance.
In a Preface to my edition of the novel, Larry McMurtry addresses the controversial fact that his heroine Patsy cries a lot. It’s true that she does cry a lot; her crying is an unignorable constant of the book, and it is sometimes annoying, but it doesn’t make me dislike the character or the book. McMurtry claims that the women in his life, at the time, were always crying and there is no reason to doubt him. I’ve known a few “copiously tearful young women” myself, and one of them is my daughter. Confusion, pain, frustration, anger, an excess of emotion in general - these emotions often find their outlet in tears, especially in young women.
Confusion and frustration are the emotional keynotes of Patsy’s life, although she is - and knows herself to be - fortunate and privileged in many ways. Patsy is an exceptionally bright young woman who often puts her husband Jim and the other male graduate students in the shade with her sharp memory and quick wits, but nothing much is expected of her other than being a young wife and mother and looking highly decorative. At the beginning of the novel she is trailing after her husband and whatever is his latest hobby; by the end, she is in charge of a household which includes her son Davey and her pregnant sister Miri and one feels that she beginning to discover what she might become.
I could write more about the political and social commentary that is in this book - the casual sexism and racism that was inescapable at the time - and perhaps I noticed it all more on this latest reading, but that is not what McMurtry puts in the foreground and that’s not what endures, for me, about the novel. It will forever be a sentimental favourite of mine.
Described by one of its early readers as McMurtry’s “love letter to Rice graduate school,” (Larry McMurtry, Tracy Daugherty), it somehow managed to be romantic and nostalgic and bittersweet and I ate it up. Although the details of the plot might get foggy - after all, this is a 800 page whopper of a book which covers not just the English department at Rice, but marriage, parenthood, a Panhandle ranch, the rodeo circuit, Hollywood, and the counterculture scene of San Francisco, all amidst the turbulent backdrop of the 1960s - I never forget the protagonist Patsy Carpenter and all of her confusions and enthusiasms. I never forget the fact that she loves Tristram Shandy, a notoriously difficult 18th century novel that I also read while at Rice, and I never forget the first paragraph of the novel.
Patsy sat by herself at the beginning of the evening, eating a melted Hershey bar. She had been reading Catch-22 but remembered the Hershey and fished it out of the glove compartment, where it had been all day. It was too melted to be neatly handleable, so she laid the paperback on the car seat and avidly swiped the chocolate off the candy paper with two fingers. When the candy was gone, she dropped the sticky wrappers out the window and licked what was left of the chocolate off her fingers before picking up the book again.
Sometimes she ate casually and read avidly - other times she read casually and ate avidly.
There is a lot of detail in the this book and it doesn’t always or even often serve the plot. It offers what McMurtry himself described as “texture,” and either you are a reader who enjoys the texture of what was eaten, what was read, what was worn, what was listened to, how it all smelled, or you don’t. I do - and the lavish details of what Patsy is eating and reading particularly appeal to me. They make for what I think of a “cozy” atmosphere and they really anchor the setting of the book to a time and place. Perhaps I feel this all more keenly as a displaced Texan who once moved to Houston as an impressionable young woman and fell in love - not once, but twice - and then moved away, but forever remained nostalgic for that young, ripe time. I lived in the same neighbourhood as Patsy and her husband Jim and their best friends Emma and Flap Horton and every street name has resonance for me. The very fact that this time of life couldn’t last, and didn’t, adds to its poignance.
In a Preface to my edition of the novel, Larry McMurtry addresses the controversial fact that his heroine Patsy cries a lot. It’s true that she does cry a lot; her crying is an unignorable constant of the book, and it is sometimes annoying, but it doesn’t make me dislike the character or the book. McMurtry claims that the women in his life, at the time, were always crying and there is no reason to doubt him. I’ve known a few “copiously tearful young women” myself, and one of them is my daughter. Confusion, pain, frustration, anger, an excess of emotion in general - these emotions often find their outlet in tears, especially in young women.
Confusion and frustration are the emotional keynotes of Patsy’s life, although she is - and knows herself to be - fortunate and privileged in many ways. Patsy is an exceptionally bright young woman who often puts her husband Jim and the other male graduate students in the shade with her sharp memory and quick wits, but nothing much is expected of her other than being a young wife and mother and looking highly decorative. At the beginning of the novel she is trailing after her husband and whatever is his latest hobby; by the end, she is in charge of a household which includes her son Davey and her pregnant sister Miri and one feels that she beginning to discover what she might become.
I could write more about the political and social commentary that is in this book - the casual sexism and racism that was inescapable at the time - and perhaps I noticed it all more on this latest reading, but that is not what McMurtry puts in the foreground and that’s not what endures, for me, about the novel. It will forever be a sentimental favourite of mine.
April 18, 2012
This is an early McMurtry novel, a long, rambling story with young Patsy Carpenter at the center of a large cast of characters that includes graduate students, ranchers, rodeo cowboys, a Hollywood writer, Haight-Ashbury hippies, and wealthy Texans - both new and old money. Written in the late 1960s, and published in 1970, "Moving On" is interesting for its attempt to capture the subtly shifting moods of its central characters instead of focusing on action and storyline. As page follows page, McMurtry describes his characters' feelings of self-assurance, annoyance, boredom, frustration, and sexual tension. And often moods degenerate into tears - Patsy's in particular.
There's more than a bit of Henry Miller in much of the novel, as characters attempt to match up their levels of sexual passion, often finding that they are rarely feeling the same thing for each other at the same time. Seduction is often unsuccessful or unsatisfying, a rendezvous full of romantic promise may turn into an argument leaving both parties exhausted. A pass made after several drinks at a party or over a milk shake at a soda fountain may elicit an exchange of bitterness and barbed recriminations. A married couple talks openly of their infidelities. A wife accuses her husband of being neglectful, while she routinely meets a colleague of his for sex.
For readers who like action and narrative development, this book will seem very slow going. For some, the many shifts of mood and ironies of thwarted intentions will make the story seem flat and the central characters unfocused. By contrast, the marginal characters, especially an old widowed rancher, a rodeo clown and his young barrel-racer girlfriend, and a teenage bronc rider spring from the page fully realized. A few scenes are pumped up with melodrama (a professor's wife breaks down in front of the girl her husband has tried to seduce; a champion rodeo cowboy refuses to accept that a ranch-owning woman he's been bedding is growing tired of him; a pregnant young woman is rescued from a drugged existence with a sinister boyfriend). But the most crisply vivid and emotionally honest scenes involve the death and burial of an old man in the nearly treeless prairie northwest of Dallas. They're simple and understated like the country folks who people these pages.
McMurtry says that this novel emerged from an image of a young woman in a car eating a melted chocolate bar. What follows that image is one thing after another, until we reach the end almost 800 pages later, and that same woman, now divorcing her husband, feels a kind of independence that may never surrender itself to another man. Some readers will find this ending worth the trip; others may find themselves, like McMurtry's characters, in a somewhat different mood.
There's more than a bit of Henry Miller in much of the novel, as characters attempt to match up their levels of sexual passion, often finding that they are rarely feeling the same thing for each other at the same time. Seduction is often unsuccessful or unsatisfying, a rendezvous full of romantic promise may turn into an argument leaving both parties exhausted. A pass made after several drinks at a party or over a milk shake at a soda fountain may elicit an exchange of bitterness and barbed recriminations. A married couple talks openly of their infidelities. A wife accuses her husband of being neglectful, while she routinely meets a colleague of his for sex.
For readers who like action and narrative development, this book will seem very slow going. For some, the many shifts of mood and ironies of thwarted intentions will make the story seem flat and the central characters unfocused. By contrast, the marginal characters, especially an old widowed rancher, a rodeo clown and his young barrel-racer girlfriend, and a teenage bronc rider spring from the page fully realized. A few scenes are pumped up with melodrama (a professor's wife breaks down in front of the girl her husband has tried to seduce; a champion rodeo cowboy refuses to accept that a ranch-owning woman he's been bedding is growing tired of him; a pregnant young woman is rescued from a drugged existence with a sinister boyfriend). But the most crisply vivid and emotionally honest scenes involve the death and burial of an old man in the nearly treeless prairie northwest of Dallas. They're simple and understated like the country folks who people these pages.
McMurtry says that this novel emerged from an image of a young woman in a car eating a melted chocolate bar. What follows that image is one thing after another, until we reach the end almost 800 pages later, and that same woman, now divorcing her husband, feels a kind of independence that may never surrender itself to another man. Some readers will find this ending worth the trip; others may find themselves, like McMurtry's characters, in a somewhat different mood.
September 20, 2023
Five stars! A beautiful novel about human relationships. The messiness involved with being human. How lives become interconnected and the ebb and flow of love. I look forward to reading the next book in the Houston Series.
April 9, 2012
This is my favorite Larry McMurtry book, hands down. His skill at crafting a character like Patsy Carpenter is unbelievable. He focuses on her, her family, her husband, her city, her house, other people's houses....everything is so detailed and feels like a real person's life. Anyway....I know that he has been credited with writing female characters well, but this book is the greatest depiction of a life of a complicated woman as I have ever read. Also, much of the action takes place in rodeos, and while driving, and that is romantic....loved it!
August 31, 2007
Patsy, the main character in this book, might be my favorite female character created by a male writer.
August 30, 2022
A spectacular novel, an epic journey through relationships that are hundreds of pages in the making (and breaking). Patsy Carpenter and her husband Jim flit between the worlds of rodeo, grad school, Texas ranches, and Hollywood, and we see their Ill-suited dynamic evolve over the course of the book. It’s easy to want to shout at McMurtry’s vivid, life-like, complex characters when they make self-destructive decisions, and sometimes painful to watch them go through difficult changes. They evolve over the novel’s 800 pages, but there’s no doubt that I felt a very real connection to them by the end. McMurtry’s prose is really spectacular generally, and there are some particular knock-out passages here (a car crash towards the end of the book comes to mind). While the book can fall into the “everyone cheats on everyone eventually” trope so prevalent in 70s literature, it doesn’t matter here because you feel like you’re watching real people make these choices, and these ARE the choices these people would make. Their motivations are so complex, it’s the kind of book you need to discuss with someone as you read. A really great novel, and a world I didn’t want to leave.
November 26, 2023
Expansive, ambitious, underrated. Always and forever one of the few American (or non-American) male writers who writes well about women.
(I'm re-reading it now. If I could underline every sentence, I would - but why spoil things. Among other things, I get a kick out of reading Patsy Carpenter's reading list, while the menfolk around her engage in mostly foolish chatter.)
(I'm re-reading it now. If I could underline every sentence, I would - but why spoil things. Among other things, I get a kick out of reading Patsy Carpenter's reading list, while the menfolk around her engage in mostly foolish chatter.)
February 25, 2022
3.5 stars
September 8, 2020
This 1000-pager has been a part of my daily routine for many weeks now. Messy, meandering — ultimately meaningful. It’s going to be hard to move on.
March 5, 2023
This novel feels like a relic of the past in more ways than one. It made me blisteringly nostalgic for an era in which one might ride around in a station wagon, following the rodeo with a box full of paperback books in your backseat. Also for an era where one might sit down and read an 800-page book in which not much happens except lots of people in the environs of a Houston graduate school program have convoluted, Rumors-like love affairs and make each other miserable. So: globally pre-the internet and personally pre-having a stressful and time consuming job.
I liked the opening, with the rodeo, the best: McMurtry is incredibly skilled at distilling from details a richly felt sense of place. All the men in this book are terrible though (except, perhaps, for Uncle Roger) and one can't help but feel that Patsy would be happier if, instead of her stupid and useless husband, she could have a career, or be in grad school; she's obviously much smarter than he is. It's astounding how claustrophobic Patsy's life seems -- despite the wide Texas countryside, her and her husband's family money, all that glorious time to read. And that's to McMurtry's credit.
Reading about all these terrible but apparently irresistible love affairs, though: I have never felt more ace in my life.
I liked the opening, with the rodeo, the best: McMurtry is incredibly skilled at distilling from details a richly felt sense of place. All the men in this book are terrible though (except, perhaps, for Uncle Roger) and one can't help but feel that Patsy would be happier if, instead of her stupid and useless husband, she could have a career, or be in grad school; she's obviously much smarter than he is. It's astounding how claustrophobic Patsy's life seems -- despite the wide Texas countryside, her and her husband's family money, all that glorious time to read. And that's to McMurtry's credit.
Reading about all these terrible but apparently irresistible love affairs, though: I have never felt more ace in my life.
Read
December 29, 2022I sincerely believe this book was instrumental in distracting me from the horrors of my holiday travel in the great Southwest Airlines meltdown of 2022! Kept me sane! For that I'm grateful! Maybe too long, but honestly, McMurtry is so good at creating a living, breathing world of 1960s Houston and Dallas, the length felt so lived in and organic. The guy clearly loves to write and it shows. The main character went to preschool in Highland Park, Texas! I know all these people, you know all these people. Will remember reading this very fondly! Great finish to 2022.
May 20, 2011
The given adjective used to describe the 1960s is “tumultuous;” but what was it like for ordinary people unsuspecting that they were the actors on a shifting cultural stage? Larry McMurtry illuminates this in “Moving On.”
The book doesn’t have much of a story arc—it’s solely focused on the relationship between two married people and the relationships that they have with others through, and eventually outside of, their marriage. And the intimate knowledge the reader is given of the marriage and the internal thoughts of the main character, Patsy, slows the story down and makes it hard to really like anyone, especially Patsy.
But much like McMurtry’s other earlier novels, he gives a very specific and rare insight into how common people were dealing with seismic changes in the American fabric on a granular level, but probably was happening everywhere (we’d know for sure if we had more authors as gifted as McMurtry).
That’s what makes McMurtry’s novels, in particular “The Last Picture Show (published in ’66),” “Moving On (’70),” and “All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers (’72),” so valuable. His prose is so descriptive that he writes almost like an embedded journalist giving first-hand detailed accounts, describing things like the emerging prevalence of drugs and hippies not in a factual way, but as part of the changing landscape, as oddities suddenly appearing and irking McMurtry’s characters without his characters really understanding what’s happening. More importantly, he takes his observations and—in an absolutely, touched-by-God sort of way—translates that into an understanding of what his characters are feeling, communicating it tenderly to his readers.
Patsy is struggling to accept her role as the young wife in an upper-middle class marriage. Never mind that she is beautiful, smart, charismatic, and knows all this about herself; she feels limited to the choices and successes her husband, Jim, has in his life. Patsy spends the first portion of the book trapped as a passenger in Jim’s car as he drives from rodeo to rodeo. Later she busies herself reading all of Jim’s books as he tries to be a literary scholar. As a result, Patsy cries, a lot, and Jim hates her for making his shortcomings apparent. She ends up taking a lover, not really because she desires him, but more because she desires something for herself.
From the viewpoint of a woman in the 21st century, who has the freedom to date and even live with men without public scorn (at least in most circles) and the choice to pursue a professional career (provided there are jobs), Patsy’s adultery made it hard for me to root for her. I found myself being critical of her for not having more foresight into the kind of d-bag Jim would make as a husband and allowing herself to get pregnant. Reminding myself that this was pre-Women’s Rights and that people sometimes make bad choices, no matter what era, helped me through.
More interesting were the parts that involved the rodeos and ranches. Cowboys don’t make the most likable characters because they tend to be macho pricks (see “Hud,” who Sonny in this book reminded me A LOT of), so it was nice having more rodeo misfits, like Pete and Peewee, who were involved in that world, but kind of uneasy about it.
McMurtry is at his most loving when he is describing Jim’s Uncle Roger’s ranch. The passage that really struck me was his description of Roger’s neighbor, who wasn’t able to come to Roger’s funeral because he had to tend to a calf’s birth, and told Patsy that he arrived at Roger’s grave late:
“The way he kept calling Roger Mr. Wagonner stabbed at her suddenly. Though he must have known Roger for years it was clear that he had never called him anything but Mr. Wagonner; and the thought of Melvin, in whatever kind of suit he could own, the blood of birth barely off his hands, alone at the filled-in-grave, hit her hard. It had the sort of poignance the funeral had utterly lacked. She went outside while Melvin finished sacking the oats, and dipped her fingers in the icy water of the watering trough. Her eyes and lashes were wet.”
That’s more poetic than poetry.
A book that, at first, seems like a collection of events in a failed marriage reveals the textures of change in ‘60s Texas. Frustrated wives, clueless academic men, rodeo (and societal) outcasts, isolated ranchers (of both genders), and seeking teenagers are stitched together here and show that people back then really aren’t that much different than people now.
The book doesn’t have much of a story arc—it’s solely focused on the relationship between two married people and the relationships that they have with others through, and eventually outside of, their marriage. And the intimate knowledge the reader is given of the marriage and the internal thoughts of the main character, Patsy, slows the story down and makes it hard to really like anyone, especially Patsy.
But much like McMurtry’s other earlier novels, he gives a very specific and rare insight into how common people were dealing with seismic changes in the American fabric on a granular level, but probably was happening everywhere (we’d know for sure if we had more authors as gifted as McMurtry).
That’s what makes McMurtry’s novels, in particular “The Last Picture Show (published in ’66),” “Moving On (’70),” and “All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers (’72),” so valuable. His prose is so descriptive that he writes almost like an embedded journalist giving first-hand detailed accounts, describing things like the emerging prevalence of drugs and hippies not in a factual way, but as part of the changing landscape, as oddities suddenly appearing and irking McMurtry’s characters without his characters really understanding what’s happening. More importantly, he takes his observations and—in an absolutely, touched-by-God sort of way—translates that into an understanding of what his characters are feeling, communicating it tenderly to his readers.
Patsy is struggling to accept her role as the young wife in an upper-middle class marriage. Never mind that she is beautiful, smart, charismatic, and knows all this about herself; she feels limited to the choices and successes her husband, Jim, has in his life. Patsy spends the first portion of the book trapped as a passenger in Jim’s car as he drives from rodeo to rodeo. Later she busies herself reading all of Jim’s books as he tries to be a literary scholar. As a result, Patsy cries, a lot, and Jim hates her for making his shortcomings apparent. She ends up taking a lover, not really because she desires him, but more because she desires something for herself.
From the viewpoint of a woman in the 21st century, who has the freedom to date and even live with men without public scorn (at least in most circles) and the choice to pursue a professional career (provided there are jobs), Patsy’s adultery made it hard for me to root for her. I found myself being critical of her for not having more foresight into the kind of d-bag Jim would make as a husband and allowing herself to get pregnant. Reminding myself that this was pre-Women’s Rights and that people sometimes make bad choices, no matter what era, helped me through.
More interesting were the parts that involved the rodeos and ranches. Cowboys don’t make the most likable characters because they tend to be macho pricks (see “Hud,” who Sonny in this book reminded me A LOT of), so it was nice having more rodeo misfits, like Pete and Peewee, who were involved in that world, but kind of uneasy about it.
McMurtry is at his most loving when he is describing Jim’s Uncle Roger’s ranch. The passage that really struck me was his description of Roger’s neighbor, who wasn’t able to come to Roger’s funeral because he had to tend to a calf’s birth, and told Patsy that he arrived at Roger’s grave late:
“The way he kept calling Roger Mr. Wagonner stabbed at her suddenly. Though he must have known Roger for years it was clear that he had never called him anything but Mr. Wagonner; and the thought of Melvin, in whatever kind of suit he could own, the blood of birth barely off his hands, alone at the filled-in-grave, hit her hard. It had the sort of poignance the funeral had utterly lacked. She went outside while Melvin finished sacking the oats, and dipped her fingers in the icy water of the watering trough. Her eyes and lashes were wet.”
That’s more poetic than poetry.
A book that, at first, seems like a collection of events in a failed marriage reveals the textures of change in ‘60s Texas. Frustrated wives, clueless academic men, rodeo (and societal) outcasts, isolated ranchers (of both genders), and seeking teenagers are stitched together here and show that people back then really aren’t that much different than people now.
June 23, 2011
As if reluctant to stride too briskly through a hot, sweaty clime, "Moving On" gives us the slow reveal of a marriage breaking apart, crack by crack. At nearly 800 pages, this novel, set primarily in the Southwest, is, indeed, a Texas-sized book. But Larry McMurtry's chronicle of beautiful Patsy Carpenter and those in her orbit is so perceptive and real that it's more of a complete and worthwhile journey to relish than one you just want to be over.
Jim and Patsy Carpenter spend the early part of the novel traveling from rodeo to rodeo as Jim, well-off but determined not to acknowledge that fact, restlessly photographs the world of competitive cowboys while trying to figure out what to do with his life. Jim and Patsy never seem to be at the proper angle to see each other squarely, never are at the same place at the same time.
From charismatic rogues to quiet cowboys to older men to enigmatic graduate students, men keep mooning over Patsy, who rebuffs them or yields to temptation at turns, sobbing all the way. McMurtry addresses Patsy's tears and the problems many readers had with her waterworks in his 1986 preface to this 1970 novel. Yes, Patsy cries buckets. Well, we need to get over that, even if she can't.
Set in the 1960s, "Moving On" steeps in that era's wanderlust and search for meaning and in the late-going even touching on hippie culture, but at its core is Patsy, because of Jim dragged through the world of rodeo and graduate school, trying to figure out what she wants.
"Why are you so completely vanilla?" Patsy asks Jim.
"Because that's the way you want me."
"I did to begin with, but maybe I'm changing."
The novel is a little less sure of itself when McMurtry's lens pulls away from Patsy to focus on the rich jet-setter Eleanor and her fling with rodeo star Sonny Shanks, himself one of Patsy's pursuers. Patsy's friend Emma Horton and her husband, Flap, are constants in Patsy's world where suitors come and go. Also, once he arrives, there is the very real presence of Patsy's baby son, Davey. McMurtry shines when it comes to women and, as it turns out, to babies. Davey is one of the most realistic, delightful infants I can recall. It's representative of McMurtry's attention to detail that he can make a small character who doesn't say a word so present.
"Moving On" (3.5 stars) is an intriguing mix of rodeo/graduate school (the collision of worlds not as jarring as you might think) and city/country. Except, perhaps, for the marital infidelities — handled realistically, not gratuitously — there are not a lot of galvanizing turning points in the plot. Some people might struggle with the book's weight and its meticulous exploration of Patsy's world. The book ebbs and flows, like a life, and the couple of years of Patsy's life presented for our view are frustrating and heartbreaking and real, if you allow yourself to watch it as it slowly unwinds.
Jim and Patsy Carpenter spend the early part of the novel traveling from rodeo to rodeo as Jim, well-off but determined not to acknowledge that fact, restlessly photographs the world of competitive cowboys while trying to figure out what to do with his life. Jim and Patsy never seem to be at the proper angle to see each other squarely, never are at the same place at the same time.
From charismatic rogues to quiet cowboys to older men to enigmatic graduate students, men keep mooning over Patsy, who rebuffs them or yields to temptation at turns, sobbing all the way. McMurtry addresses Patsy's tears and the problems many readers had with her waterworks in his 1986 preface to this 1970 novel. Yes, Patsy cries buckets. Well, we need to get over that, even if she can't.
Set in the 1960s, "Moving On" steeps in that era's wanderlust and search for meaning and in the late-going even touching on hippie culture, but at its core is Patsy, because of Jim dragged through the world of rodeo and graduate school, trying to figure out what she wants.
"Why are you so completely vanilla?" Patsy asks Jim.
"Because that's the way you want me."
"I did to begin with, but maybe I'm changing."
The novel is a little less sure of itself when McMurtry's lens pulls away from Patsy to focus on the rich jet-setter Eleanor and her fling with rodeo star Sonny Shanks, himself one of Patsy's pursuers. Patsy's friend Emma Horton and her husband, Flap, are constants in Patsy's world where suitors come and go. Also, once he arrives, there is the very real presence of Patsy's baby son, Davey. McMurtry shines when it comes to women and, as it turns out, to babies. Davey is one of the most realistic, delightful infants I can recall. It's representative of McMurtry's attention to detail that he can make a small character who doesn't say a word so present.
"Moving On" (3.5 stars) is an intriguing mix of rodeo/graduate school (the collision of worlds not as jarring as you might think) and city/country. Except, perhaps, for the marital infidelities — handled realistically, not gratuitously — there are not a lot of galvanizing turning points in the plot. Some people might struggle with the book's weight and its meticulous exploration of Patsy's world. The book ebbs and flows, like a life, and the couple of years of Patsy's life presented for our view are frustrating and heartbreaking and real, if you allow yourself to watch it as it slowly unwinds.
January 9, 2008
The Amazon.com reviews for this book say that nothing happens in this book, but that is totally untrue. It's a long meandering portrait of a marriage falling apart. It's main character Patsy Carpenter is not particularly likeable, but I came to sympathize deeply with her. Many many many people have said that she cries too much, but I entirely disagree. I think it's a nuanced, incredibly well-observed rendering of a real woman, more so than almost any other male writer I've ever read. She is not all women, all women do not cry so much, but she is herself entirely.
This shouldn't be a huge surprise. Larry McMurtry has always written women--people, really--incredibly well. Just look at his masterpiece, Lonesome Dove. It doesn't matter if a character is in that book for a second or all 800 pages; from the moment they come on stage, every character is perfectly him- or herself.
At times Moving On was disturbing, because it so very well captures that alienation that one can feel in a long-term, intimate relationship, those moments that happen even in good relationships, where you look at the other person and think, for a moment, "Who are you?" He also captures the pain of those relationships falling apart, even when it's better that they do, the ugly realization that someone is better off without you, is even a better person without you. Highly recommended.
This shouldn't be a huge surprise. Larry McMurtry has always written women--people, really--incredibly well. Just look at his masterpiece, Lonesome Dove. It doesn't matter if a character is in that book for a second or all 800 pages; from the moment they come on stage, every character is perfectly him- or herself.
At times Moving On was disturbing, because it so very well captures that alienation that one can feel in a long-term, intimate relationship, those moments that happen even in good relationships, where you look at the other person and think, for a moment, "Who are you?" He also captures the pain of those relationships falling apart, even when it's better that they do, the ugly realization that someone is better off without you, is even a better person without you. Highly recommended.
April 24, 2012
Very readable. Well, it IS McMurtry after all. I wasn't terribly impressed with the main character, Patsy. Especially since the only progress she has managed to make by the end of the book was being able to keep from crying every five minutes. Still, it was interesting enough to keep me reading to the end. I keep hoping this author will write another "Lonesome Dove" but not so far.
May 16, 2023
Book I: The Beginning of the Evening - the newlyweds make the rodeo circuit in the high West during the summer of the 1960s-ish America, bandying about in a beat up Ford, with constant marital tension and the noble effort of a novice photographer, Jim; married to the volatile Patsy Carpenter, who is the moral compass of the story so far. Can't quite figure out where the master is taking us except, back to Houston, Texas, to a garage apartment near Rice University on South Blvd.
Book II: Houston! Winter and spring with the new life of Rice University graduate school, and living in the backhouse of a wealthy family on South Blvd. Even with the expectancy of pregnancy, the marriage of Patsy and Jim is on shaky ground, and the other suitors are piling up in the newly-found promiscuity of the 1960s in the liberal enclave of Southampton. McMurtry can make his fictional characters seem so alive, as if you are reading their memoirs; or could this narrative be a reflection of his tenure as a Rice Univ. lecturer during 1963-1969? The contrast between rural and urban is also quite stark, even though Houston has grown even more urban since then. Some of the same problems exist in the modern day, yet his description of the social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the big cities of the 1960s is as exciting as the Apollo space program that was about to blast off down at the Space Center near Houston. 50% through the book, and I don't have any notion of what will happen to this couple, and their new baby, David.
Book III: here's a clue: the next section is called "Sleeping Around!" - the prose is inviting, raw, and I don't know how much more dysfunctional this marriage can be before I quit this book, even though I am 60% through. McMurtry can place the setting and the emotions perfectly in conjunction with the dialogue; however, the two main characters are so immature and cruel that I keep wondering how this plane will crash? This is like a marital #whodunit (thriller)!
Lot's of adultery in Part III, as one would expect in the wild 60s, and I wonder if there is an emotionally stable adult in this book? Sonny, Eleanor, Miri, Emma, Clara, and even silent Hank, will make you want to run away! And why does Patsy cry so much?
Book IV: the final section is about the summer before they bought a house on Albans near Rice. This is the point where the action rises to a conclusion. There is approximately 25% left in the book and I am anticipating some sort of tragic resolution to the love-triangle, using Davey as a sympathetic foil. At 80% through the book, finally, the "denouement" arrived unsurprisingly, when the pathetic couple eventually struggled to admit that they should have gone to a psychiatrist for counseling and eventually discussed **************Spoiler Alert***************** another big "D" word, and I don't mean Dallas. This book is full of anger, sadness, drugs, pride, hubris, fornication, narcissism, wrath, dejection, gossip, adultery, moodiness, restlessness, truth, and love; but I don't know how it will end with just 10% left to read. The twists at the conclusion are unexpected. Pleasant conclusion in Houston, and I might want to try no. 2 in the series, from 1972.
Book II: Houston! Winter and spring with the new life of Rice University graduate school, and living in the backhouse of a wealthy family on South Blvd. Even with the expectancy of pregnancy, the marriage of Patsy and Jim is on shaky ground, and the other suitors are piling up in the newly-found promiscuity of the 1960s in the liberal enclave of Southampton. McMurtry can make his fictional characters seem so alive, as if you are reading their memoirs; or could this narrative be a reflection of his tenure as a Rice Univ. lecturer during 1963-1969? The contrast between rural and urban is also quite stark, even though Houston has grown even more urban since then. Some of the same problems exist in the modern day, yet his description of the social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the big cities of the 1960s is as exciting as the Apollo space program that was about to blast off down at the Space Center near Houston. 50% through the book, and I don't have any notion of what will happen to this couple, and their new baby, David.
Book III: here's a clue: the next section is called "Sleeping Around!" - the prose is inviting, raw, and I don't know how much more dysfunctional this marriage can be before I quit this book, even though I am 60% through. McMurtry can place the setting and the emotions perfectly in conjunction with the dialogue; however, the two main characters are so immature and cruel that I keep wondering how this plane will crash? This is like a marital #whodunit (thriller)!
Lot's of adultery in Part III, as one would expect in the wild 60s, and I wonder if there is an emotionally stable adult in this book? Sonny, Eleanor, Miri, Emma, Clara, and even silent Hank, will make you want to run away! And why does Patsy cry so much?
Book IV: the final section is about the summer before they bought a house on Albans near Rice. This is the point where the action rises to a conclusion. There is approximately 25% left in the book and I am anticipating some sort of tragic resolution to the love-triangle, using Davey as a sympathetic foil. At 80% through the book, finally, the "denouement" arrived unsurprisingly, when the pathetic couple eventually struggled to admit that they should have gone to a psychiatrist for counseling and eventually discussed **************Spoiler Alert***************** another big "D" word, and I don't mean Dallas. This book is full of anger, sadness, drugs, pride, hubris, fornication, narcissism, wrath, dejection, gossip, adultery, moodiness, restlessness, truth, and love; but I don't know how it will end with just 10% left to read. The twists at the conclusion are unexpected. Pleasant conclusion in Houston, and I might want to try no. 2 in the series, from 1972.
September 17, 2023
Well, that was only a walk in the park. But really, prepare yourself and wear good shoes, you'll be living and breathing the life of Patsy Carpenter awhile, all of a thousand and eight pages. Poignant and well written. Character driven as apposed to plot driven. If you go into it expecting another Lonesome Dove you'll be disappointed. Just as good but a much more meandering going on and lots of introspective dwelling, than the purpose of cattle herding and steering clear of bandits.
April 16, 2018
Larry McMurtry’s Moving On is a big book—one reviewer called it Texas-sized—about a motely group of people and how their lives unfold and intersect with one another. A canvas this size affords McMurtry the opportunity to populate his story with a host of colorful, funny, serious, zany, rambunctious, sedate, and memorable characters, both young and old.
The characters play out their fates against multiple backdrops of the 1960s. In Houston, it is academia; in Los Angeles and Hollywood, it is the movie industry; and across multiple other states, it is the excitement of the rodeo. Some characters are larger than life: Sonny Shanks, famed rodeo legend and aspiring movie star; Bill Duffin, revered, condescending, and lecherous academician and intellectual; and wealthy Eleanor Guthrie, fading beauty looking for love in all the wrong places. McMurtry’s minor characters are equally unforgettable: Peewee Raskin, immature, sentimental bronc rider who hero-worships just about everybody; Joe Percy, cynical author and Hollywood scriptwriter; Pete and Boots Tatum, serious-minded rodeo clown and barrel racer, respectively; and widower Roger Waggoner, gentle, seasoned cowboy with ranching in his blood.
At the nucleus of this sprawling story are the trials and tribulations of a young married couple, Patsy and Jim Carpenter. Patsy is instantly lovable. Jim is restless and directionless, which has him hopping from one potential occupation to another without ever seeing any to fruition. Patsy is alternatingly supportive and critical of Jim’s undertakings. His constantly shifting focus triggers long road trips in a battered Ford, demands sudden cash outlays for new career launches, and inflames fresh marital fights with Patsy.
The story has riotously funny segments followed by happenings that are serious and traumatic. Apart from Jim and Patsy’s marriage, there are other sundry and surprising romantic pairings, all of which McMurtry treats with realistic, brutal honesty. His level of scrutiny of relationships among old and young is unsparing and sympathetic.
Inevitably, there is as much faithfulness as there is infidelity; as much rejoicing as heartbreak; as much silent loyalty as boastful betrayal; as much hope as hopelessness; and as much cause for regret as there is for celebration. After racing through the first 500 pages, this reader was gratified to learn there were 300 pages more of McMurtry’s brilliant, simply-told story, not just of Patsy and Jim’s marriage, but of the relationships of all other partner pairings.
This Texas-sized book promises, then delivers a Texas-sized satisfaction. McMurtry labels Moving On as the first book in his “Houston trilogy,” the others being All My Friends Are Going to be Cowboys and Terms of Endearment.
The characters play out their fates against multiple backdrops of the 1960s. In Houston, it is academia; in Los Angeles and Hollywood, it is the movie industry; and across multiple other states, it is the excitement of the rodeo. Some characters are larger than life: Sonny Shanks, famed rodeo legend and aspiring movie star; Bill Duffin, revered, condescending, and lecherous academician and intellectual; and wealthy Eleanor Guthrie, fading beauty looking for love in all the wrong places. McMurtry’s minor characters are equally unforgettable: Peewee Raskin, immature, sentimental bronc rider who hero-worships just about everybody; Joe Percy, cynical author and Hollywood scriptwriter; Pete and Boots Tatum, serious-minded rodeo clown and barrel racer, respectively; and widower Roger Waggoner, gentle, seasoned cowboy with ranching in his blood.
At the nucleus of this sprawling story are the trials and tribulations of a young married couple, Patsy and Jim Carpenter. Patsy is instantly lovable. Jim is restless and directionless, which has him hopping from one potential occupation to another without ever seeing any to fruition. Patsy is alternatingly supportive and critical of Jim’s undertakings. His constantly shifting focus triggers long road trips in a battered Ford, demands sudden cash outlays for new career launches, and inflames fresh marital fights with Patsy.
The story has riotously funny segments followed by happenings that are serious and traumatic. Apart from Jim and Patsy’s marriage, there are other sundry and surprising romantic pairings, all of which McMurtry treats with realistic, brutal honesty. His level of scrutiny of relationships among old and young is unsparing and sympathetic.
Inevitably, there is as much faithfulness as there is infidelity; as much rejoicing as heartbreak; as much silent loyalty as boastful betrayal; as much hope as hopelessness; and as much cause for regret as there is for celebration. After racing through the first 500 pages, this reader was gratified to learn there were 300 pages more of McMurtry’s brilliant, simply-told story, not just of Patsy and Jim’s marriage, but of the relationships of all other partner pairings.
This Texas-sized book promises, then delivers a Texas-sized satisfaction. McMurtry labels Moving On as the first book in his “Houston trilogy,” the others being All My Friends Are Going to be Cowboys and Terms of Endearment.
February 24, 2015
I have been a fan of McMurtry ever since reading Leaving Cheyenne and The Last Picture Show back in the early 1970s. And then, of course, I read Lonesome Dove, probably my all-time favorite novel. Moving On has been on my shelf for years and I know I started reading it back in the 70s or 80s but for some reason never finished. The copy I have now is one I picked up at a thrift store a couple of years ago -- not sure what happened to my original AVON paperback. Anyway, this was a long rather daunting novel and probably its length was the reason I put it aside years ago. It tells the story of Patsy Carpenter, her husband, Jim and their life during the late 1960s. It starts out with the couple following the rodeo circuit through the Southwest because Jim has decided he wants to be a photographer and he decided to use rodeos as his subject matter. Along the way they meet a variety of interesting and memorable characters including Sonny Shanks, a rodeo star who wants to get it on with Patsy, Pete Tatum, a rodeo clown, and others. These characters pop up along the way in this immense story. But the bulk of the story takes place in Houston as Jim decides to pursue his graduate degree at Rice University. One of Patsy's good friends in Houston, Emma Horton, later turns up in McMurtry's Terms of Endearment, another novel of his I need to get to. Anyway, the bulk of this novel is just telling about the day-to-day life of Patsy and her acquaintances including their infidelities and insecurities. A lot of this was very familiar. Overall, I would recommend this but it did take me a few weeks to get through it.
May 7, 2020
3.5 This is a really tough one for me to review. I was totally hooked on reading it. I loved so many of the smaller side characters. I found the main couple to be incredibly vain and annoying. I think a lot of my issues with Patsy’s character could be because it was a book written by a man in the 70s about a woman in the 60s. He obviously considered women to be neurotic almost to the point of not being able to function. And yes, the amount of crying Patsy does is ludicrous- and I’m a very easy crier. He makes her read as if she’s bipolar to be honest. I had no idea this book was over a thousand pages because I got it in the kindle. I will continue to read the series because I read that the other books concern some of the minor characters in this book. And the books are also much shorter. So I guess it’s the pull between great writing and annoying-as-hell characters and/or old-school views of women.
December 10, 2010
Larry McMurtry is becoming one of my favorite writers. His characters are just very real, and I have an easy time relating to them and caring about them. When I started the book, I almost couldn't stand Patsy because she was so neurotic and would cry over everything. Something kept me hooked though, and she ended up being my favorite character. You could really feel her evolution and growth as a person. I didn't realize that this was part of the Terms of Endearment/Evening Star trilogy when I first started reading it, but I'll be buying both of those books when I go home to Austin in a couple of weeks. I'll probably watch the movies again too.
August 2, 2022
This is a lesser-known work from the author but with the same understanding of the complexities of people and same love for the West. All that people want is happiness but no one knows or recognizes it when it arrives so they keep on chasing it. An endearing heroine and her husband, who you feel needs a sharp kick in the ass, along with a lot of other typical McMurtry characters who really made this one of my favorites of his.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 170 reviews