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Summary
Summary
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry delivers the sequel to his enormously popular novel Terms of Endearment, also an Academy Award-winning motion picture. Aurora Greenway is now dealing with the trials and tribulations of her grandchildren, who she raised after the death of her daughter. With humor and care, McMurtry presents a fulfilling tale of growing old and moving on.
Author Notes
Larry McMurtry, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among other awards, is the author of twenty-four novels, two collections of essays, two memoirs, more than thirty screenplays, & an anthology of modern Western fiction. He lives in Archer City, Texas.
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Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Here old age and death catch up with some beloved McMurtry characters familiar to readers since Terms of Endearment . Willful, tart-tongued Aurora Greenway and her outspoken maid and confidante, Rose Dunlup, sp ok? yes are in their 70s when this book begins; Aurora's lover, Gen. Hector Scott, is nearing 90. Their eccentricities have been exacerbated by the passing of years. Still greedy for life and sexual fulfillment, Aurora convinces Hector that they need psychoanalysis to ensure his better performance; then she begins an affair with the therapist, who is 30 years her junior. Aurora's grandchildren, the legacy of her dead daughter, Emma, are painfully neurotic: former dope dealer Tommy is in prison for manslaughter; though trying maintain mental stability with Jane and their adorable baby, Teddy again comes close to breakdown; pregnant Melissa's feckless boyfriend abandons her for a woman with a Ferrari. The vicissitudes of all these lives occupy the overlong narrative, which blends humor and bathos, snappy dialogue and tedious conversations. When McMurtry is at his best, as in capturing the wise and witty exchanges between Aurora and Rosie, the novel is irresistible. Often, however, the meandering `meanders' in next review. I have restored because the word is important here. Let's move the reviews around. Please lift this one and place it 3rd or 4th in the drop. thanks sss plot seems interminable. Readers who quit in frustration will miss the poignant last third of the novel, in which several lives come to a close. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club featured alternate. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Part Two of the amorous adventures of Aurora Greenway, the high-spirited heroine of Terms of Endearment (1975). Aurora and her faithful maid/best-friend Rosie are pushing 70 (``late middle age''), living together in Aurora's Houston home. Aurora's daughter Emma, who died of cancer, left three kids, all emotional cripples, despite Aurora's efforts. Tommy is a murderer, doing time for shooting his ex-girlfriend; Teddy, sweet but fragile, lives with Jane (they met in a mental hospital) and their baby son Bump; Melanie, a college dropout, is pregnant by her ex- boyfriend. All Aurora's beaus are dead, except for General Hector Scott, her live-in lover; but the octogenarian General is now impotent, and Aurora's flirtation with Pascal, a diminutive Frenchman, has not sweetened his temper. Aurora decides they should go for therapy together, and she soon seduces their ``seriously attractive'' therapist, Jerry Bruckner--not for an affair but simply ``to get laid,'' as she tells Jerry upfront. For Aurora, to her surprise, is consumed by lust. She and Hector have discovered the golden years are far more messy than serene; sex is Aurora's way of resisting ``the downward curve of life'' and keeping herself in the mainstream. Her fling with Jerry is good news for the reader, too, since it liberates Aurora from the brittle sitcom routines involving her, Rosie, Hector, and Pascal, and provides something of substance at the center. That aside, McMurtry's freshest writing is about the kids (Tommy in the joint, Melanie in Hollywood, Teddy in a ménage à trois with Jane's girlfriend), and his most portentous is about Aurora's final days, consoling herself with a brand-new great-grandson and the Brahms Requiem. McMurtry's celebration of the life force in an inhospitable world has just enough kick to keep you interested, but his uncertain handling (vaudeville or tragicomedy?) keeps you from full involvement; also, it's way too long.
Booklist Review
McMurtry's latest offering is a continuation of Terms of Endearment featuring many of the characters that appeared in that novel--notably the irascible and indomitable Aurora Greenway, one of the great female characters in recent fiction. Here Aurora displays the same tough-and-tender character traits that helped get her through the death of her daughter, Emma, at the close of Terms; but, being older, the vagaries of life and fate are nevertheless beginning to wear her down. The story picks up several years after Emma's death, when Aurora's three grandchildren (the children of Emma) have all grown up into troubled adulthood. Tommy, the oldest, is in prison for killing his girlfriend; brother Teddy is a depressive genius prone to nervous breakdowns; sister Melanie is fat, pregnant, and demonstrably incapable of finding a decent man. It is testimony to McMurtry's consummate skills as a writer that he can wring a great deal of humor out of the trials and tribulations of this ill-starred family--which he does, most often and most memorably, by recounting Aurora's complicated romantic entanglements with a series of aged, and generally eccentric, suitors. But, as always in a McMurtry novel, the humor is offset by a lot of tragedy, sorrow, and death--especially death. All of this is McMurtry's way of telling us that life is sometimes joyous, frequently painful, and usually unpredictable. Fortunately, it can also be downright hilarious, as readers of this book are certain to discover. (Reviewed Apr. 15, 1992)0671685198Steve Weingartner
Library Journal Review
McMurtry's latest novel picks up Aurora Greenway's life 17 years after her exploits in Terms of Endearment . Now in her mid-60s, Aurora still manages to both enchant and infuriate with her queenly world view and unswerving tastes, including a perpetual quest for new beaux. The capricious, generally directionless characters lead lives fraught with whimsy but also with sorrow, a sense of time escaping before life's real purpose is revealed. The cast includes General Scott, Aurora's increasingly senile ``old boyfriend''; her maid and best friend, Rosie; her three grown grandchildren, all slightly damaged in some central way; as well as a variety of suitors. The connections between people in this novel, characterized by humor and serenity, run deep and sympathetic. Yet, as in life, there is a fair quotient of the unexpected and the tragic. McMurtry speaks from the heart with the gentle voice of acceptance. Don't miss this rare and wonderful book. Highly recommended for all audiences. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/92.--Marilyn Jordan, Keiser Coll. Lib., Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
