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. (Aug.)

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 asuccession 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.

A droll and poignant dramedy, Rhino Ranch is a near-perfect coda to the minor masterwork of Texas’s greatest novelist.”
—Texas Monthly

“Nobody depicts the complexities of smalltown Texas life and the frailties of human relationships better than McMurtry.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“[Duane] and his friends in the fictional Texas town of Thalia made me laugh and nearly made me cry, and they made me think about life…”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

No one writes amiable better than Larry McMurtry (think Gus McCrae), and happily, the wonderful Will Patton does amiable just fine. Texas amiable, too. There isn't terribly much plot to McMurtry's novel, but there are characters galore, and Patton not only ably voices all of them, he seems perfectly in tune with the aimless but likeble rhythm of the novel, which, in the broadest terms, concerns a billionairess named K.K. Slater who comes to town to locate a preserve for African rhinos. But the novel's real concern is one of the locals K.K. befriends, Duane Moore, whom McMurtry fans will remember from THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. He is far advanced in age now and is contemplating how to live a life of value as he finds himself more alone every week. But fear not, the novel may be wistful in places, but thanks to McMurtry and Patton, it is never less than affable. M.O. © AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine