It is the description of the town and the characters that gives The Last Picture Show its reality. McMurtry captures precisely the moods, thoughts, reactions, and desires of small-town high-school students; likewise, he discovers the characters in the town by revealing their thoughts—not grand thoughts, but the small thoughts that run through peoples minds that, altogether, define them. The description of the town, though, is what captures the reader at the beginning of the novel: There was only one car parked on the courthouse square—the night watchman's old white Nash. A cold norther was singing in off the plains, swirling long ribbons of dust down main street, the only street in Thalia with businesses on it. Sonny's pickup was a '41 Chevrolet, not at its best on cold mornings. In front of the picture show it coughed out and had to be choked for...