The Last Picture Show - Larry McMurtry

⭐ 6/10

The final of the McMurty collection I own, the first was a masterpiece, the second was memorable, and this was an outright dud. I read it quickly, so I wouldn't say it was terrible, but my goodness this is the horniest book I have ever read! Did not expect that. Basically a bunch of high school kids all sleeping with each other. When that gets played out, one of them starts hooking up with his football coach's wife, and she loves it. The football coach leers at the girls they used to date in a disgusting way. Other adult women show up and either flirt or sleep with these boys. There is a spontaneous trip to Mexico to visit prostitutes and watch porn then come back. The boys go to a farm drunkenly one night to get their fix in another way... just 100 pages of lust and desperation.

I will say there is a thread in all three of these books of feeling like you missed the good ol' days, like something is ending and you don't know where you fit in what is coming next. There is an aimlessness to a lot of these characters, and if I was from the town this book is lovingly dedicated too I would be offended! Even more so if I was outed as one of the late night farm visitors! Just a very weird book that I didn't really know what to make of. It has great reviews, there is even a movie adaptation with Jeff Bridges!? And as I said its the third in this collection of classics, so I was holding it to a high bar thinking this is a definitive work.

Maybe I am a prude and can't see how the constant sexual drive here is an indication of how boring the town is, a dusty corner in the middle of nowhere that has inhabitants desperate to feel anything. There might be something deeper in this book, but I think Leaving Cheyenne had all the same ideas in a book that was more than teenage lust.