Loop Group

The latest novel from Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurtry is nonstop fun. Reader C.J. Critt clearly loves the story, and her joy reading it shines through in every word. The story follows two lifelong friends, Maggie and Connie, on a road trip from California, where they dub voices for movies, to Texas. Along the way the colorful women encounter a zany cast of characters and confront some of life's most difficult issues. The fun for Critt never ends. While she brings personality to the lead characters, Critt is also marvelous with the many supporting characters, whose personality quirks she highlights with alacrity. Perhaps the most memorable is Aunt Cooney, Connie's octogenarian aunt, a Texas chicken farmer whose indomitable spirit Critt captures superbly. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

November 8, 2004
In his 28th novel, Pulitzer-winner McMurtry again displays his knack for compelling characters and plots, this time as two women of a certain age take a road trip through Texas. Sixty-year-old widow Maggie Clary hasn't felt like herself since her hysterectomy; though her Hollywood company, Prime Loops, is doing well—they dub in the grunts and groans for movie soundtracks—she secretly wonders if she's going "bats." Maggie's three well-intentioned daughters have appeared on her doorstep for a Sunday morning "intervention." Though Maggie's diminutive Sicilian psychiatrist has improved her mood (thanks, in part, to their mid-session sex), she decides to follows the advice of a flirtatious waiter and try a change of scenery. Maggie invites fellow "looper" and best friend Connie (the two have been inseparable—and boy crazy—since they were 14), to join her on a drive to her octogenarian Aunt Cooney's Texas chicken ranch. Despite family troubles that threaten to sabotage their trip, the two stay the course on a road rife with reprobates, from a relentless "professional" hitchhiker to a mild-mannered car thief forever violating his parole. Aunt Cooney's brief appearance is among the high points of McMurtry's life-affirming tale: sporting an "old mashed-up" cowboy hat and an abundance of rouge, the gregarious granny greets her city slicker niece by yanking a pistol out of her pocket and firing shots into the sky. Agent, Andrew Wylie.