The novel is divided into two unequal sections. The first and longest part is Aurora's story. It is a comic tour de force. Aurora is drawn against a moneyed Houston setting; her only friend is her maid; her days are filled with adventures that at times approach slapstick. McMurtry's skill at creating believable women characters is displayed to its advantage; while comic, Aurora is always believably human, never grotesque. The second part of the novel, Emma's story, is dramatically different from the first section; McMurtry returns to realist narrative, serious and without irony, as he tells of Emma's short, unhappy life. The two parts of the novel are vastly different: one, discursive, comic, satiric; the other, short, sad, elegiac. Although this has bothered some critics, it is clear that McMurtry has succeeded in creating two strong women characters and has defined, with skill and tenderness, the mysterious blood...