Terms of Endearment
Larry McMurtry, 1975
Simon & Schuster
416 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780684853901
Summary
In this acclaimed novel that inspired the Academy Award-winning motion picture, Larry McMurtry created two unforgettable characters who won the hearts of readers and moviegoers everywhere: Aurora Greenway and her daughter Emma.
Aurora is the kind of woman who makes the whole world orbit around her, including a string of devoted suitors. Widowed and overprotective of her daughter, Aurora adapts at her own pace until life sends two enormous challenges her way: Emma's hasty marriage and subsequent battle with cancer.
Terms of Endearment is the story of a memorable mother and her feisty daughter and their struggle to find the courage and humor to live through life's hazards — and to love each other as never before. (From the publisher.)
The novel was adapted to film in 1983 and starred Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, Jack Nicholson, and Jeff Daniels.
In 1992 McMurtry followed up with The Evening Star, a sequel to Terms of Endearment. It, too, was adapted to film in 1996.
Author Bio
• Birth—June 3, 1936
• Where—Wichita Falls, Texas, USA
• Education—B.A., North Texas State University; M.A., Rice
University; studied at Stanford University
• Awards—Pulitzer Prize, 1986
• Currently—Archer City, Texas
Back in the late 60s, the fact that Larry McMurtry was not a household name was really a thorn in the side of the writer. To illustrate his dissatisfaction with his status, he would go around wearing a T-shirt that read "Minor Regional Novelist." Well, more than thirty books, two Oscar-winning screenplays, and a Pulitzer Prize later, McMurtry is anything but a minor regional novelist.
Having worked on his father's Texas cattle ranch for a great deal of his early life, McMurtry had an inborn fascination with the West, both its fabled history and current state. However, he never saw himself as a life-long rancher and aspired to a more creative career. He achieved this at the age of 25 when he published his first novel. Horseman, Pass By was a wholly original take on the classic western. Humorous, heartbreaking, and utterly human, this story of a hedonistic cowboy in contemporary Texas was a huge hit for the young author and even spawned a major motion picture starring Paul Newman called Hud just two years after its 1961 publication. Extraordinarily, McMurtry was even allowed to write the script, a rare honor for such a novice.
With such an auspicious debut, it is hard to believe that McMurtry ever felt as though he'd been slighted by the public or marginalized as a minor talent. While all of his books may not have received equal attention, he did have a number of astounding successes early in his career. His third novel The Last Picture Show, a coming-of-age-in-the-southwest story, became a genuine classic, drawing comparisons to J. D. Salinger and James Jones. In 1971, Peter Bogdonovich's screen adaptation of the novel would score McMurtry his first Academy award for his screenplay. Three years later, he published Terms of Endearment, a critically lauded urban family drama that would become a hit movie starring Jack Nicholson and Shirley MacLaine in 1985. A sequel, Evening Star, was published in 1992 and adapted to film in 1996.
McMurtry published what many believe to be his definitive novel. An expansive epic sweeping through all the legends and characters that inhabited the old west, Lonesome Dove was a masterpiece. All of the elements that made McMurtry's writing so distinguished—his skillful dialogue, richly drawn characters, and uncanny ability to establish a fully-realized setting—convened in this Pulitzer winning story of two retired Texas rangers who venture from Texas to Montana. The novel was a tremendous critical and commercial favorite, and became a popular miniseries in 1989.
Following the massive success of Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry's prolificacy grew. He would publish at least one book nearly every year for the next twenty years, including Texasville, a gut-wrenching yet hilarious sequel to The Last Picture Show, Buffalo Girls, a fictionalized account of the later days of Calamity Jane, and several non-fiction titles, such as Crazy Horse.
Interestingly, McMurtry would receive his greatest notoriety in his late 60s as the co-screenwriter of Ang Lee's controversial film Brokeback Mountain. The movie would score the writer another Oscar and become one of the most critically heralded films of 2005. The following year he published his latest novel. Telegraph Days is a freewheeling comedic run-through of western folklore and surely one of McMurtry's most inventive stories and enjoyable reads. Not bad for a "minor regional novelist."
Extras
McMurtry comes from a long line of ranchers and farmers. His father and eight of his uncles were all in the profession.
The first printing of McMurtry's novel In a Narrow Grave is one of his most obscure for a rather obscure reason. The book was withdrawn because the word "skyscrapers" was misspelled as "skycrappers" on page 105. (From Barnes & Noble.)
Book Reviews
There is something very winning about Larry McMurtry's latest novel, Terms of Endearment something that makes one keep reading along despite the book's many obvious faults. Partly, I suppose, it's simply trust in Mr. McMurtry...[who] has never been less than winning. Partly, it's the star of the story, Aurora Greenway.... The novel can't seem to make up its mind what it wants to be....It starts off a drawing-room farce.... At other times it veers into pure sensibility.... and concludes with the slightly lugubrious story of [Aurora's] daughter's marital misadventures and eventual death from cancer.
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt - New York Times
McMurtry [is] trying his hand at what seems, for most of the book's length, to be a kind of comedy of manners centered upon a well-to-do widow of forty-nine.... Respecting McMurtry's earlier achievements, one would like to think that the author is taking large risks.... But the evidence does not support such a wish. Terms of Endearment remains an odd, misshapen, surprisingly amateurish novel composed of disparate parts that never cohere.
Robert Towers - New York Times Book Review
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Terms of Endearment:
1. Aurora Greenway claims "only a saint could live with me, and I can't live with a saint." How would you describe Aurora? Is she a sympathetic character. Is she fully-drawn with emotional and psychological complexity...or is she one-dimensional and cartoonish?
2. What kind of mother is Aurora...what is her relationship with her daughter, Emma? How might Aurora's nurturing skills (or lack of) have shaped Emma's personality and her approach to life?
3. Of Aurora's many suitors (first of all...are 5 suitors even realistic for a woman entering her 50's?) is there one in particular you were rooting for? Why does she treat them with such disdain...and why do they keep coming back?
4. Mr. McMurtry is a very funny writer—known for his snappy, humorous dialogue and near slap-stick plot points. Which parts of this story do you find particularly funny?
5. What do you think of Flap Horton, Emma's husband? Why do the two stay together as a couple?
6. Because the first part of the book is comedic, reviewers and readers have commented that the last part, which revolves around Emma, feels "tacked on." In other words, it doesn't mesh well with what comes before—almost as if the novel is two separate books. Do you agree...did you have difficulty switching gears? Or do you think the story moves smoothly into the Emma section and onto its final pages?
7. What are "terms of endearment" and what—thematically— does the expression mean in the context of this book?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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