Reviews for Duane's Depressed

The average rating for Duane's Depressed based on 2 reviews is 5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2010-03-10 00:00:00 John Doe Once in a great while, the resonance of a book takes you by the collar and shakes you like a dog with a sock. This is one of those for me. Maybe it wouldn't have been this way a year ago or a month from now or if I had eaten differently this past week, but I just finished this book and I'm a wreck. It's hilarious. It's sad. And hardest of all for me right now, it's a mirror. This business of the importance of who you are at the moment you read something (or see a movie, or listen to a song) interests me. But it's not just your mood'part of the job of the artist is to set that mood, after all, even though it's an imperfect craft'it's also bigger, as in, your time of life. I got a lot more out of reading Moby-Dick in my thirties than when it was assigned in my teens; and I think I got gobsmacked by this book partly because I'm over 50 and I'm a father. I bet if I'd read this right after the Melville, I'd have given it only four stars. I'm also amazed by the craft of this thing. McMurtry's Duane is a good man, deeply introspective (though unused to it), acting at maximum capacity. How the author keeps these plates spinning is a thing of beauty. It should not be that interesting to be inside the head of a 60+ uneducated Texas oil-man who is trying to find himself, but I was breathless with wonder throughout. Maybe it's my own existential angst, but that can't be all of it. The guy can write the hell out of a character. The blurb: One day Duane Moore decides he's tired of riding in his pickup and that he'll start walking. Everywhere. And the citizens of Thalia, Texas, especially his wife Karla, think he's off his rocker. You can get more of an idea of the book reading other reviews; what I haven't seen but thought as I read it is that this is a funnier, deeper, Texas revisiting of some of the themes of Rabbit Run and related to the escaping-mom novels of Anne Tyler.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-12-28 00:00:00 Jean-S�bastien Dalcourt Very good and sad. Sad because of how depressed Duane is the whole time.