markpills's Reviews > Moving On

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.