In this masterful and often surprising sequel to the acclaimed Duanes Depressed the Pulitzer Prize- and Oscar-winning author of Lonesome Dove has written a haunting elegiac and occasionally erotic novel about one of his most beloved characters Duane Moore first made his appearance in The Last Picture Showand like his author he has aged but not lost his vigor or his taste for life Back from a two-week trip to Egypt Duane finds he cannot readjust to life in Thalia the small dusty West Texas hometown in which he has spent all of his life In the short time he was away it seems that everything has changed alarmingly His office barely has a reason to exist now that his son Dickie is running the company from Wichita Falls his lifelong friends seem to have suddenly grown old his familiar hangout once a good old-fashioned convenience store has been transformed into an Asian Wonder Deli his daughters seem to have taken leave of their senses and moved on to new and strange lives and his own health is at serious risk Its as if Duane cannot find any solace or familiarity in Thalia and cannot even bring himself to revisit the house he shared for decades with his late wife Karla and their children and grandchildren He spends his days aimlessly riding his bicycle already a sign of serious eccentricity in West Texas and living in his cabin outside town The more he tries to get back to the rhythm of his old life the more he realizes that he should have left Thalia long ago -- indeed everybody he cared for seems to have moved on without him to new lives or to death The only consolation is meeting the young attractive geologist Annie Cameron whomDickie has hired to work out of the Thalia office Annie is brazenlyseductive yet oddly cold young enough to be Duanes daughter or worse and Duane hasnt a clue how to handle her Hes also in love with his psychiatrist Honor Carmichael who after years of rebuffing him has decided to undertake what she feels is Duanes very necessary sex reeducation opening him up to some major life-changing surprises For the lesson of When the Light Goes is that where theres life there is indeed hope -- Duane widowed displaced from whatever is left of his own life suddenly rootless in the middle of his own hometown and at risk of death from a heart that also doesnt seem to be doing its job is in the end saved by sex by love and by his own compassionate and intense interest in other people and the surprises they reveal At once realistic and life-loving often hilariously funny and always moving though without a touch of sentimentality Larry McMurtry has opened up a new chapter in Duanes life and in doing so written one of his finest and most compelling novels to date doing for Duane what he did so triumphantly for Aurora in Terms of Endearment.
