The earlier two novels share theme and characters with Terms of Endearment. Moving On is the story of Patsy Carpenter, Emma's best friend. In this novel, Emma and her husband Flap are seen in a relatively happy time. As Patsy's marriage fails, Emma's is seen as flawed but stable. Emma is depicted as unfailingly kind, a devoted mother and friend. Emma appears briefly in All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers as the friend and one-time lover of the hero, Danny Deck. This novel also concerns a failed marriage; Emma, again, is seen as a good friend. In Terms of Endearment, Patsy appears briefly, and Emma, dying, escapes pain and the demands of the living into dreams of Danny Deck.

The novel returns to both characters and themes of McMurtry's earlier works. The most marked change is the pervasiveness of a sense of the inexorability...