To my sadness, I found that this is the concluding chapter of Duane Moore's story, which began with 'The Last Picture Show' in 1966. As things proceed, however, one begins to go more easily with the flow, and the layering of these incidents and insights provides a pleasing if not fully satisfying whole. I found this distracting and sometimes frustrating, especially through the first third of the book. One drawback for me is that the storytelling is formatted into small little bite-sized chunks, many short chapters of only a page or two in length, so individual situations are rarely explored in depth. There is even a touch of magical realism. McMurtry keeps things whimsical and fun, though.

The novel is thoughtful and elegiac in tone, as characters we've come to care about face innumerable changes in the world they've known and bump up against their own mortality.

When a billionairess decides to purchase a large tract of land outside Thalia and set up a game preserve to try to save an African Rhino species facing extinction, the locals of Thalia come face to face with the outside world in ways they don't necessarily appreciate. This is the fifth and final entry in McMurtry's 'Thalia, Texas' series that begins with The Last Picture Show.

Rhino ranch larry mcmurtry