Rhino Ranch

Starred review from June 22, 2009
McMurtry ends the west Texas saga of Duane Moore, begun in 1966 with The Last Picture Show
, with a top-shelf blend of wit and insight, sharply defined characters and to-the-point prose. Duane, now in his late 60s, is a prosperous and retired widower, lonely in his hometown of Thalia, Tex. Then billionaire heiress K.K. Slater moves in and opens the Rhino Ranch, a sanctuary intended to rescue the nearly extinct African black rhinoceros. Slater is a strong-willed, independent woman whose mere presence upsets parochial Thalia, and Duane can’t quite figure her out. His two best buddies, Boyd Cotton and Bobby Lee Baxter, both work for Slater, and the three friends schmooze with the rich, talk about geezer sex, rat out local meth heads and try to keep track of a herd of rhinos. Mixed in with the humor and snappy dialogue are tender and poignant scenes as the women in Duane’s life die or drift away, and Duane befriends a rhino and realizes that his life has lost its purpose. Nobody depicts the complexities of smalltown Texas life and the frailties of human relationships better than McMurtry.

July 1, 2009
Duane Moore's depressed and a little horny—but not as horny as the black rhinoceroses that have entered his increasingly complicated life.

Now in his late 60s, Duane has been with us since The Last Picture Show (1966). That was many volumes ago, McMurtry (Books: A Memoir, 2008, etc.) being a prolific chap, and Duane has had his ups and downs. This book catches him on a down. His friend Honor sums up his condition philosophically:"Many aging people feel marginal, to some degree. For decades they're at the center of things, and then one day they're not. They slip over to the sidelines." Duane has ample justification for being bummed. His wife, Annie Cameron of the fantastically wealthy Dallas Cameron clan, has some dirty little secrets that unfold across the novel's pages. The people he has grown up with are leaving the planet. He's living in Arizona, which makes him an outsider when he returns to the xenophobic little burg of Thalia, Texas. Duane's not as much of an outsider, however, as is K.K. Slater, another woman from Dallas with fantastic wealth (at least on paper) who has established a vast ranch in order to rescue the African black rhino from extinction. The sight of black rhinos brings out the peckerwoods, guns a-blazing; Satanists and South Africans also figure into the mix, as does an extremely compliant porn star and a few other odd ducks. The narrative gets a little, well, middling toward the middle; a couple of set pieces rely on setups just a little too convenient, even considering the smallness of small-town Texas. However, McMurtry ultimately ties up a whole skein of loose ends neatly, and the book closes lyrically with ineluctable sadness, life being in the end a succession of small tragedies and occasional triumphs.

A lovely, high-lonesome end to Duane's saga that also offers the possibility of more books to come—which readers will certainly hope McMurtry delivers.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from July 1, 2009
One of McMurtrys great gifts as a novelist is the ability to swing from vast epics such as Lonesome Dove to more intimate, small-scale stories confined to particular times and places. Here, McMurtry returns to a familiar place: the tiny hamlet of Thalia in northern Texas. The central character, Duane Moore, now a senior citizen, was first introduced as a callow teenager in The Last Picture Show. Now Duane is retired, moderately prosperous, widowed, divorced, and intermittently depressed as Thalia and his personal world are transformed daily. As the saga of Duane concludes, he interacts with a variety of interesting and often endearing characters. K. K. Slater is a billionaire and a dilettante determined to build a nature preserve for rhinos outside of Thalia. Dal is a Cambodian-born techno whiz who bears the scars of her homelands genocide. Honor Carmichael, Duanes former psychotherapist, provides him with long-distance advice and friendship from New York. Boyd Cotton, a once great cowboy, and Hondo Honda, a legendary Texas Ranger, strive to cope with the decline of their skills. Willie is Duanes beloved grandson, who has won a Rhodes scholarship. There is even a mysterious rhino, Double Aught, who seems curiously attached to Duane. McMurtry, as always, treats his characters with humor, affection, and respect. The conclusion is bittersweet but a satisfying finale to a wonderful series of novels.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)