What do you think?
Rate this book
Desert Rose #1
The Desert Rose
Pulitzer Prize–winner Larry McMurtry writes novels set in the American heartland, but his real territory is the heart itself. His gift for writing about women—their love for reckless, hopeless men; their ability to see the good in losers; and their peculiar combination of emotional strength and sudden weakness—makes The Desert Rose the bittersweet, funny, and touching book that it is.
Harmony is a Las Vegas showgirl with the best legs in town. At night she's a lead dancer in a gambling casino; during the day she raises peacocks. She throws her love away on second-rate men, but wakes up in the morning full of hope. She's one of a dying breed of dancers, faced with fewer and fewer jobs and an even bleaker future. Yet, she maintains a calm cheerfulness in that arid neon landscape of supermarkets, drive-in wedding chapels, and all-night casinos.
While Harmony's star is fading, her beautiful, cynical daughter Pepper's is on the rise. But Harmony remains wistful and optimistic through it all. She is the unexpected blossom in the wasteland, the tough and tender desert rose. Hers is a loving portrait that only Larry McMurtry could render.
Harmony is a Las Vegas showgirl with the best legs in town. At night she's a lead dancer in a gambling casino; during the day she raises peacocks. She throws her love away on second-rate men, but wakes up in the morning full of hope. She's one of a dying breed of dancers, faced with fewer and fewer jobs and an even bleaker future. Yet, she maintains a calm cheerfulness in that arid neon landscape of supermarkets, drive-in wedding chapels, and all-night casinos.
While Harmony's star is fading, her beautiful, cynical daughter Pepper's is on the rise. But Harmony remains wistful and optimistic through it all. She is the unexpected blossom in the wasteland, the tough and tender desert rose. Hers is a loving portrait that only Larry McMurtry could render.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
38 people are currently reading
831 people want to read
About the author
Larry McMurtry
150 books4,080 followersLarry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.
In Tracy Daugherty's 2023 biography of McMurtry, the biographer quotes critic Dave Hickey as saying about McMurtry: "Larry is a writer, and it's kind of like being a critter. If you leave a cow alone, he'll eat grass. If you leave Larry alone, he'll write books. When he's in public, he may say hello and goodbye, but otherwise he is just resting, getting ready to go write."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
October 18, 2020
Reading Road Trip 2020
Current location: Nevada
“That's the nice thing about Las Vegas. . . I was never talented like you are, I was just pretty. Nobody would have known what to do with me anywhere else, but here I got to be a feathered beauty.”
When Larry McMurtry was heads down writing Lonesome Dove, wondering how he was ever going to pull his epic story together, a Hollywood producer called and asked him if he'd be willing to take a break and go to Las Vegas to see about writing a film script about a showgirl.
Mr. McMurtry, the early-to-bed, early-to-rise writer, rancher, and bookstore owner, writes about the experience in the Preface:
I am peculiarly ill-equipped to observe the real life of a showgirl. I like to sleep at night—preferably all night. But the showgirl's work is nocturnal. I dutifully tried to attend a few shows, but found it a heavy chore. . . After a day and a half I had not been closer than a hundred feet to any showgirl.
He almost immediately dismissed the idea of a film script, but, suddenly, in the frenetic energy that is Las Vegas, he knew he wanted to write another woman's story. Turns out, he hadn't “fallen” for a female character of his since Terms of Endearment's Emma Horton, and he was overcome with a desire to do so. He could suddenly see his new female protagonist, Harmony, and her precocious daughter Pepper, and he knew he had to write them.
He found himself suddenly surrounded by “tits, asses, and feathers.”
He wrote the novel in three weeks.
If you are familiar with Mr. McMurtry's work, you will most likely appreciate the outlandishness here, the satire he has created with an over-the-top backdrop of the lights of Las Vegas and half-naked ladies.
If you are not familiar with Mr. McMurtry's work and you are a female reader, you may be offended and not grasp the humor. I also wouldn't recommend this as a starting point of his work.
This is essentially a humorous homage to a decadent and decrepit city, yet it isn't cruel, either. It's obvious, at least to me, that Mr. McMurtry always embodies his characters and protects them, too.
Harmony is, in many ways, a nightmare for many women; she's a looks obsessed women who has made a living as a topless showgirl. She also can't seem to live without a man and makes terrible decisions when it comes to romance. However, she's also a person who has maintained an optimistic outlook on life in a soul-sucking place.
As her best friend Gary tells her, she has “the ability to see the bright side. . . and [that] takes courage.”
To be honest, I laughed throughout much of this read, and when I got to the scene of a dressing room crammed full of topless, G-string clad beauties and one of the ladies leans in to the group and expresses her concern that her kid's learning disabilities aren't being addressed at school. . .
I knew that Larry was just messing with me.
Current location: Nevada
“That's the nice thing about Las Vegas. . . I was never talented like you are, I was just pretty. Nobody would have known what to do with me anywhere else, but here I got to be a feathered beauty.”
When Larry McMurtry was heads down writing Lonesome Dove, wondering how he was ever going to pull his epic story together, a Hollywood producer called and asked him if he'd be willing to take a break and go to Las Vegas to see about writing a film script about a showgirl.
Mr. McMurtry, the early-to-bed, early-to-rise writer, rancher, and bookstore owner, writes about the experience in the Preface:
I am peculiarly ill-equipped to observe the real life of a showgirl. I like to sleep at night—preferably all night. But the showgirl's work is nocturnal. I dutifully tried to attend a few shows, but found it a heavy chore. . . After a day and a half I had not been closer than a hundred feet to any showgirl.
He almost immediately dismissed the idea of a film script, but, suddenly, in the frenetic energy that is Las Vegas, he knew he wanted to write another woman's story. Turns out, he hadn't “fallen” for a female character of his since Terms of Endearment's Emma Horton, and he was overcome with a desire to do so. He could suddenly see his new female protagonist, Harmony, and her precocious daughter Pepper, and he knew he had to write them.
He found himself suddenly surrounded by “tits, asses, and feathers.”
He wrote the novel in three weeks.
If you are familiar with Mr. McMurtry's work, you will most likely appreciate the outlandishness here, the satire he has created with an over-the-top backdrop of the lights of Las Vegas and half-naked ladies.
If you are not familiar with Mr. McMurtry's work and you are a female reader, you may be offended and not grasp the humor. I also wouldn't recommend this as a starting point of his work.
This is essentially a humorous homage to a decadent and decrepit city, yet it isn't cruel, either. It's obvious, at least to me, that Mr. McMurtry always embodies his characters and protects them, too.
Harmony is, in many ways, a nightmare for many women; she's a looks obsessed women who has made a living as a topless showgirl. She also can't seem to live without a man and makes terrible decisions when it comes to romance. However, she's also a person who has maintained an optimistic outlook on life in a soul-sucking place.
As her best friend Gary tells her, she has “the ability to see the bright side. . . and [that] takes courage.”
To be honest, I laughed throughout much of this read, and when I got to the scene of a dressing room crammed full of topless, G-string clad beauties and one of the ladies leans in to the group and expresses her concern that her kid's learning disabilities aren't being addressed at school. . .
I knew that Larry was just messing with me.
December 29, 2019
McMurtry is one-of-a-kind. The same brain that concocts tales of the cowboys, with bigger and bolder ease, also illuminates "small" lives--giving grace & distinction to characters we would never look twice at in real life. He's the patron saint of everyday literary miracles.
October 23, 2020
Taking a break from amateur sleuths, I checked in with one of our best storytellers in Larry McMurtry and The Desert Rose. Published in 1983, the novel had elements that appealed to me, Las Vegas and female characters. I say that McMurtry is one of our best storytellers on the human understanding on display in the Houston based series which includes
Terms of Endearment
, the Gus McCrae-Woodrow Call westerns beginning with
Lonesome Dove
and one of my favorite novels,
The Last Picture Show
. This effort is not up to that standard and is so lazy that if I didn't know who wrote it, I'd encourage the author to read some Larry McMurtry.
The Desert Rose is an extensive telling about Harmony (no last name, which is an annoyance of mine in most fiction), a thirty-nine year old lead showgirl at the Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Heralded as the most beautiful woman in the city when she arrived at the age of seventeen, Harmony is neither a dancer or a singer, but is so dang pretty and has kept both her figure and her sanity to become a pivotal cog in the Vegas machine. Harmony has a great vacancy in her head and her spine, wandering from one deadbeat relationship to another, but is a kind person. Her daughter Pepper, an even greater beauty, has grown up fast and jumps at the chance to take her mother's place on the stage.
I had a lot of problems with this book. Let's start with the first paragraph.
Harmony is driving home, eastward out of Las Vegas, her spirits high, her head a chatter of memories. Harmony loves to remember bits of her life, it makes her feel well, anyway, it's all been interesting. One of the memories that pops in is something Ross used to say, which was that they ought to call Las Vegas Leg City, or else Titsburg. Ross was always thinking up funny names for things, he had kept her laughing right up until the time they had Pepper, plus about a year more, and then she and Pepper took him down to the bus station behind the Stardust one day, he was going to check on a job doing lights for a show up in Tahoe, and had sort of just never come back, although Pepper was as cute a little girl as anyone could want and Harmony herself at the time had been said by some to have the best legs in Las Vegas and maybe the best bust too, although that was long before she had ever done topless, so that only Ross and a few of her old boyfriends really knew the whole story there.
That's a sample of the novel. McMurtry tells what characters are thinking. He tells about conversations they have, summarizing a lot of them like someone you run into at the supermarket might. He tells about things that happened in the past. He tells about other characters who have names like Jessie and Gary and Buddy and Madonna. Then he tells some more. We're not shown much. Nothing much happens. The book is the most thoroughly average barbecue you've ever been to, where everyone sort of enjoys the yard furniture and franks and talks about things that happened somewhere else. No one will ever necessarily talk about this barbecue.
McMurtry doesn't know what Harmony wants or where she wants to go. She feeds her peacocks and wonders when her latest ex-boyfriend is going to reappear and start being nice to her. His impression of her is about as deep as a nine year old has of his mom. Spending time with Harmony was like climbing into a sports car, riding to the end of the street, turning around, and coming back, passing the same neighbors a few times and then ending right back up where you started.
Pepper's sections of the novel show signs of life because while Pepper has power and verve, she has so many spectacular mistakes ahead of her and I kept waiting for her to step into one. The fact that things more or less work out for Pepper felt like a wasted opportunity.
The only thing that worried her was Buddy, he was becoming so jealous h was apt to do anything. Usually she let him pick her up after her dance lessons which didn't wow Madonna exactly, when they drove away Pepper would see Madonna looking down at them from the window of the studio. Madonna didn't say anything but it was plain she thought Buddy was a yuk. Even if she went straight from the dance lesson to Buddy's house and fucked him it didn't really help matters, by the time she had taken a shower and borrowed the Mustang to go to Mel's Buddy would be sulking again. Pepper was beginning to decide she didn't need it, he wasn't the only good-looking guy in the world, in fact she would have gone for Mel in a minute if she could have got him to make a move. But Mel was complicated, she could stand a foot away from him topless and he wouldn't make the move.
What was Las Vegas like in the early '80s? What was it like when Harmony first arrived in 1961? What's it like working as a showgirl? Are there any people in Las Vegas who are anything but dimmer, dumber or duller than you or I? I don't know from reading this book.
If I was describing The Desert Rose to someone, I'd say it was a rough draft an author had to plow through to get an idea of what to write a book about. It had potential but McMurtry didn't make the effort to realize any of that potential. It's very droll and very easy to ready but nothing much happens that made the least bit of difference to me.
The Desert Rose is an extensive telling about Harmony (no last name, which is an annoyance of mine in most fiction), a thirty-nine year old lead showgirl at the Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Heralded as the most beautiful woman in the city when she arrived at the age of seventeen, Harmony is neither a dancer or a singer, but is so dang pretty and has kept both her figure and her sanity to become a pivotal cog in the Vegas machine. Harmony has a great vacancy in her head and her spine, wandering from one deadbeat relationship to another, but is a kind person. Her daughter Pepper, an even greater beauty, has grown up fast and jumps at the chance to take her mother's place on the stage.
I had a lot of problems with this book. Let's start with the first paragraph.
Harmony is driving home, eastward out of Las Vegas, her spirits high, her head a chatter of memories. Harmony loves to remember bits of her life, it makes her feel well, anyway, it's all been interesting. One of the memories that pops in is something Ross used to say, which was that they ought to call Las Vegas Leg City, or else Titsburg. Ross was always thinking up funny names for things, he had kept her laughing right up until the time they had Pepper, plus about a year more, and then she and Pepper took him down to the bus station behind the Stardust one day, he was going to check on a job doing lights for a show up in Tahoe, and had sort of just never come back, although Pepper was as cute a little girl as anyone could want and Harmony herself at the time had been said by some to have the best legs in Las Vegas and maybe the best bust too, although that was long before she had ever done topless, so that only Ross and a few of her old boyfriends really knew the whole story there.
That's a sample of the novel. McMurtry tells what characters are thinking. He tells about conversations they have, summarizing a lot of them like someone you run into at the supermarket might. He tells about things that happened in the past. He tells about other characters who have names like Jessie and Gary and Buddy and Madonna. Then he tells some more. We're not shown much. Nothing much happens. The book is the most thoroughly average barbecue you've ever been to, where everyone sort of enjoys the yard furniture and franks and talks about things that happened somewhere else. No one will ever necessarily talk about this barbecue.
McMurtry doesn't know what Harmony wants or where she wants to go. She feeds her peacocks and wonders when her latest ex-boyfriend is going to reappear and start being nice to her. His impression of her is about as deep as a nine year old has of his mom. Spending time with Harmony was like climbing into a sports car, riding to the end of the street, turning around, and coming back, passing the same neighbors a few times and then ending right back up where you started.
Pepper's sections of the novel show signs of life because while Pepper has power and verve, she has so many spectacular mistakes ahead of her and I kept waiting for her to step into one. The fact that things more or less work out for Pepper felt like a wasted opportunity.
The only thing that worried her was Buddy, he was becoming so jealous h was apt to do anything. Usually she let him pick her up after her dance lessons which didn't wow Madonna exactly, when they drove away Pepper would see Madonna looking down at them from the window of the studio. Madonna didn't say anything but it was plain she thought Buddy was a yuk. Even if she went straight from the dance lesson to Buddy's house and fucked him it didn't really help matters, by the time she had taken a shower and borrowed the Mustang to go to Mel's Buddy would be sulking again. Pepper was beginning to decide she didn't need it, he wasn't the only good-looking guy in the world, in fact she would have gone for Mel in a minute if she could have got him to make a move. But Mel was complicated, she could stand a foot away from him topless and he wouldn't make the move.
What was Las Vegas like in the early '80s? What was it like when Harmony first arrived in 1961? What's it like working as a showgirl? Are there any people in Las Vegas who are anything but dimmer, dumber or duller than you or I? I don't know from reading this book.
If I was describing The Desert Rose to someone, I'd say it was a rough draft an author had to plow through to get an idea of what to write a book about. It had potential but McMurtry didn't make the effort to realize any of that potential. It's very droll and very easy to ready but nothing much happens that made the least bit of difference to me.
May 3, 2020
This is a re-read for me from my favorite author of all time. It is the story of Harmony, a Las Vegas Showgirl (the book was written in 1983) and her daughter Pepper who want to follow in her mother's footsteps. It is about a mother and her daughter, as soon as you begin reading, you are thrust in the middle of their lives. Told back and forth between the two, Harmony's narrative resonated more with me because of her struggles to understand her daughter as well as her experiences as a woman. Pepper is young, selfish and resentful of her mother. But McMurtry's writing is not overly dramatic more matter of fact than anything else. I love how he can write from a woman's point of view! I read the prologue after I finished the book and was amazed to hear he wrote it in 3 weeks! He was in the middle of writing "Lonesome Dove" and had stalled out after 1200 pages. And as McMurtry writes " My characters seemed to be moving at an ox-like pace...I didn't know and in fact was growing a little bored with their slow trek over the plains. I needed a vacation" And that "vacation" was the writing of "The Desert Rose". He writes that "finding Harmony was a great relief to me...I did like writing Harmony and her friends and was sorry when she strolled out of hearing in Reno three weeks later." I love how his characters write themselves!
If you have not read McMurtry you should. "All my Friends are Going to be Strangers", "Moving On" and then "Terms of Endearment" are a must read! They are different stories with some of the same characters, a trilogy of sorts.
If you have not read McMurtry you should. "All my Friends are Going to be Strangers", "Moving On" and then "Terms of Endearment" are a must read! They are different stories with some of the same characters, a trilogy of sorts.
January 3, 2024
A Haunting Tale that Leaves Fans Wondering: What Might Have Been?
Friends who follow my reviews—and I want to offer a 2024 New Year's "Thank you!" to Goodreads friends who are gracious in adding "likes" and occasional encouraging comments—know that I'm following a multi-year odyssey to read the entire list of the late Larry McMurtry's books. This is the 14th book that I've read since his passing in 2021 and, although I wasn't active on Goodreads in 2021 and 2022, I've been adding hopefully helpful "context" in an ongoing series of McMurtry reviews since January 2023. Check out My Books for other McMurtry reviews, if you're a fan like me and enjoy hearing what other fans have to say.
And, I apologize, because that's a long-winded introduction to this review of Desert Rose. But, in a way, it's fitting. If you've read this far then you most likely care about McMurtry's body of work as much as I do. And, in this case, I'm also touching on another of my life-long creative heroes: the filmmaker Terrence Malick. He's the guy who astonished moviegoers with Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, but truly is a philosopher of the fine arts and his overall body of feature films is often controversial or at least puzzling to viewers. I personally love his Tree of Life, for example, but I also have good friends who say "poor Terry completely lost his way on that one."
So, Desert Rose is the nexus where Terrence Malick and Larry McMurtry—two creative idols in my own life—met for a brief and largely mysterious moment. I've dug fairly deeply, as a journalist, into the story behind Desert Rose and the key "takeaway" is this: Both men took on this project as professionals needing to keep the revenue flowing. In a word, Desert Rose began as a "paycheck" for both men, apparently—and that is most definitely not a bad thing in professional media. I'm a 50-year veteran of newspaper and magazine journalism and working for a "paycheck" is an entirely honorable thing to do as a professional.
In the early 1980s, McMurtry was asked—and also was offered a generous expense account for on-site travel and research—to write a novel about Las Vegas "showgirls." Even 40-or-so years ago, when McMurtry agreed to this project, "showgirls"—those beautiful, scantily clad or partially nude dancers in elaborate Las Vegas revues—were disappearing in favor of more contemporary big-name entertainers. And, after McMurtry spent many weeks in Las Vegas researching this novel, Desert Rose, he pointedly acknowledges the fading nature of those old-style Vegas productions. That "endangered species" era for these entertainers is part of the bittersweet charm of the novel.
The overall story is easy to summarize: One of Vegas's most famous showgirls is aging to the point that her own rebellious young daughter manages to get herself hired to replace her Mom. The story is 256 pages more complicated than that one sentence, but you get the idea: It's a Shakespearean drama of parents and rebellious youth—starring women rather than men and set in Vegas rather than one of the faux kingdoms favored by the Bard.
For McMurtry fans, this is a treasure trove of carefully etched, quirky characters. The fun of the book really is those 256 pages of this odd assortment of people interacting in various ways between themselves and some mischievous goats and peacocks. There apparently have to be some spirited livestock poking around in any McMurtry novel.
I also need to stress that this was published 40 years ago and there are obviously uncomfortable sexual issues in this novel that, today, would never have been portrayed in this way. This novel's sexual awareness definitely is dated; and acknowledge that issue, I'm giving the novel 4 rather than 5 stars. So, now, I've noted that issue and I'm also saying: McMurtry fans nevertheless are likely to enjoy this strangely off-beat slice of his storytelling.
Then, what about the mysterious Terence Malick? What was his role in all of this? From sources I could find in histories and various film magazines, Malick labored over this script in a serious way for some time—perhaps a year or so or maybe more. But, as I said at the outset, this was a work-for-hire for both men and, while McMurtry did actually publish his novel—Malick eventually wandered away from the project. Today, it's a largely forgotten work, only available in the novel format.
HOWEVER—and this is a big "however"—I do need to point out that McMurtry's lifelong penchant for falling in love with his own characters struck again in the case of Desert Rose. A dozen years later, he published a sequel, which I will be reading (and reviewing) next in this series. It's called The Late Child. And spoilers abound in even talking about this little-known but wonderful gem of a sequel. So, stay tuned, please, my friends who love McMurtry, to see how I navigate that particularly tricky review in Goodreads.
Friends who follow my reviews—and I want to offer a 2024 New Year's "Thank you!" to Goodreads friends who are gracious in adding "likes" and occasional encouraging comments—know that I'm following a multi-year odyssey to read the entire list of the late Larry McMurtry's books. This is the 14th book that I've read since his passing in 2021 and, although I wasn't active on Goodreads in 2021 and 2022, I've been adding hopefully helpful "context" in an ongoing series of McMurtry reviews since January 2023. Check out My Books for other McMurtry reviews, if you're a fan like me and enjoy hearing what other fans have to say.
And, I apologize, because that's a long-winded introduction to this review of Desert Rose. But, in a way, it's fitting. If you've read this far then you most likely care about McMurtry's body of work as much as I do. And, in this case, I'm also touching on another of my life-long creative heroes: the filmmaker Terrence Malick. He's the guy who astonished moviegoers with Badlands, Days of Heaven and The Thin Red Line, but truly is a philosopher of the fine arts and his overall body of feature films is often controversial or at least puzzling to viewers. I personally love his Tree of Life, for example, but I also have good friends who say "poor Terry completely lost his way on that one."
So, Desert Rose is the nexus where Terrence Malick and Larry McMurtry—two creative idols in my own life—met for a brief and largely mysterious moment. I've dug fairly deeply, as a journalist, into the story behind Desert Rose and the key "takeaway" is this: Both men took on this project as professionals needing to keep the revenue flowing. In a word, Desert Rose began as a "paycheck" for both men, apparently—and that is most definitely not a bad thing in professional media. I'm a 50-year veteran of newspaper and magazine journalism and working for a "paycheck" is an entirely honorable thing to do as a professional.
In the early 1980s, McMurtry was asked—and also was offered a generous expense account for on-site travel and research—to write a novel about Las Vegas "showgirls." Even 40-or-so years ago, when McMurtry agreed to this project, "showgirls"—those beautiful, scantily clad or partially nude dancers in elaborate Las Vegas revues—were disappearing in favor of more contemporary big-name entertainers. And, after McMurtry spent many weeks in Las Vegas researching this novel, Desert Rose, he pointedly acknowledges the fading nature of those old-style Vegas productions. That "endangered species" era for these entertainers is part of the bittersweet charm of the novel.
The overall story is easy to summarize: One of Vegas's most famous showgirls is aging to the point that her own rebellious young daughter manages to get herself hired to replace her Mom. The story is 256 pages more complicated than that one sentence, but you get the idea: It's a Shakespearean drama of parents and rebellious youth—starring women rather than men and set in Vegas rather than one of the faux kingdoms favored by the Bard.
For McMurtry fans, this is a treasure trove of carefully etched, quirky characters. The fun of the book really is those 256 pages of this odd assortment of people interacting in various ways between themselves and some mischievous goats and peacocks. There apparently have to be some spirited livestock poking around in any McMurtry novel.
I also need to stress that this was published 40 years ago and there are obviously uncomfortable sexual issues in this novel that, today, would never have been portrayed in this way. This novel's sexual awareness definitely is dated; and acknowledge that issue, I'm giving the novel 4 rather than 5 stars. So, now, I've noted that issue and I'm also saying: McMurtry fans nevertheless are likely to enjoy this strangely off-beat slice of his storytelling.
Then, what about the mysterious Terence Malick? What was his role in all of this? From sources I could find in histories and various film magazines, Malick labored over this script in a serious way for some time—perhaps a year or so or maybe more. But, as I said at the outset, this was a work-for-hire for both men and, while McMurtry did actually publish his novel—Malick eventually wandered away from the project. Today, it's a largely forgotten work, only available in the novel format.
HOWEVER—and this is a big "however"—I do need to point out that McMurtry's lifelong penchant for falling in love with his own characters struck again in the case of Desert Rose. A dozen years later, he published a sequel, which I will be reading (and reviewing) next in this series. It's called The Late Child. And spoilers abound in even talking about this little-known but wonderful gem of a sequel. So, stay tuned, please, my friends who love McMurtry, to see how I navigate that particularly tricky review in Goodreads.
March 6, 2025
I liked this. Very stream-of-consciousness, quirky, unrealistic … a story you can kind of lose yourself in, because it’s just so unserious and fun. However, women do not actually all think/behave like this — we are layered, Larry, I hope you know that. Las Vegas showgirls have complex inner lives, and are aware of what terms like “grooming” and “power imbalance” mean. Harmony, babe … your daughter is not okay. Go check on her. The fact that Larry wrote Harmony in such a way that she was okay with the whole Mel thing, and supportive of their wildly inappropriate union … yikes.
Want to read The Lonesome Dove for sure! bye :)
Want to read The Lonesome Dove for sure! bye :)
June 17, 2009
This wasn’t the most profound book, nor did it have the most beautifully written passages, but it was a treat to read. I finished this in the time span of two plane rides (one of them really, really bumpy). The characters are so fully flushed and vibrant, it’s hard not to love all of them. I even loved Pepper, although McMurtry writes in his forward that he didn’t mean to make her as much as a monster as she turned out. But I really understood why she was the way she was…with a mother like Harmony, it’s easy to get.
That’s not to say I didn’t find Harmony sweet and kind. She was, too much so, and that’s why she was flawed as a person and a mother. Of course, it doesn’t take much insight into the human condition to comprehend her either. None of the characters in the book do, and that’s why it was so much fun to read. I felt like I was sitting outside their messy Vegas abode, watching the peacocks as the day passed us by.
Lifestyles like theirs are fun to read about because their world is so different than mine. And people in Vegas and the surrounding area really do have an alternate form of reality. An ex-coworker of mine once told me a story when he was working in a TV station in those parts and a new hire showed up for her first day. He could smell alcohol on her breath, so almost ashamedly he asked if she had been drinking (this guy was a pretty mild mannered person, but had a legal obligation to at least ask). The woman very casually said, “Oh yeah, I always have a beer or two when I’m getting ready for work.” That woman could’ve been the real Harmony.
That’s not to say I didn’t find Harmony sweet and kind. She was, too much so, and that’s why she was flawed as a person and a mother. Of course, it doesn’t take much insight into the human condition to comprehend her either. None of the characters in the book do, and that’s why it was so much fun to read. I felt like I was sitting outside their messy Vegas abode, watching the peacocks as the day passed us by.
Lifestyles like theirs are fun to read about because their world is so different than mine. And people in Vegas and the surrounding area really do have an alternate form of reality. An ex-coworker of mine once told me a story when he was working in a TV station in those parts and a new hire showed up for her first day. He could smell alcohol on her breath, so almost ashamedly he asked if she had been drinking (this guy was a pretty mild mannered person, but had a legal obligation to at least ask). The woman very casually said, “Oh yeah, I always have a beer or two when I’m getting ready for work.” That woman could’ve been the real Harmony.
July 23, 2022
Harmony has been a showgirl at The Stardust in Las Vegas for over twenty years, and her flawless looks matched by her equally perfect body have allowed her to reign as the most beautiful showgirl on the strip. She also has a good heart as big as the great outdoors, an abundance of compassion and humanity, and an empathy gene that kicks into overdrive at the slightest sign of suffering in human or animal. Even if she is in dire straits for one reason or another, she always tries to make life better for others through selfless acts of charity. Not surprisingly, Harmony attracts all manner of stray misfits, oddballs, and hard-luck cases on whom she immediately lavishes care and attention.
Despite her goddess-like status as a showgirl, Harmony nevertheless lives paycheck-to-paycheck, a condition she has mostly brought upon herself through her reflex generosity and throwing her love away on the worst kind of men. Her first husband, Ross, left her fourteen years ago to find his fortune in Reno. Her current flame is an utter rascal and reprobate who unfeelingly preys upon Harmony’s kindness. Most recently, he waited patiently at her mailbox, and stole from it a $1300 dollar insurance check in front of her very eyes.
But the plot of The Desert Rose—such as it is—is really about the changing dynamic between Harmony and her precocious, 16-year-old daughter, Pepper. It is surprising that the two are biologically connected, for every dimension of goodness in Harmony, Pepper reflects the exact opposite. She is selfish, self-centered, cynical, and sarcastic, and particularly hard-hearted and insulting towards her mother. Harmony’s DNA, of course, is simply not wired to allow feelings of hate, blame, and bad temper. Pepper is sexually active to an astonishing degree, but is invariably the dominant partner who calls the shots in break-ups and make-ups of relationships.
Pepper, if anything, is more beautiful than her mother, and it isn’t long before she catches the attention of Bonventre, The Stardust’s boss. She also crosses the path of Mel, a wealthy voyeur photographer, who takes pictures of Pepper modeling vintage lingerie. Though thirty years her senior, Mel proposes to Pepper, and shortly thereafter, Bonventre auditions her for a topless dancing role in his show. Harmony is in blissful ignorance of these events, though it is not without personal consequence to her. Harmony eventually finds out, of course, yet is fairly helpless to do anything. Meanwhile, brutish and insensitive Bonventre, with a history of treating his showgirls and other staff as commodities, suddenly develops a bizarre stab of conscience about a 16-year-old and her 39-year-old mother performing topless in the same show, and callously fires the latter.
This forces Harmony to consider life-changing options, and author Larry McMurtry takes readers through Harmony’s decisions with tenderness and skill. Along the way, he introduces and describes the fate of numerous colorful secondary characters. There is Harmony’s neighbor, sixty-something Myrtle, whose daily profession is hosting garage sales that sometimes net only 75 cents; there is Gary, the gay wardrobe man who dresses/undresses the showgirls; and there is fragile fellow-showgirl Jesse, who can only spare paranoia about the growing gap in her front teeth. In addition to an assortment of casino dealers, barmen, and restaurateurs, there are also Harmony’s peacocks, Myrtle’s furniture-eating goat, Maude, and Jesse’s spoiled poodle, Francois, who would sooner go on hunger strike than condescend to eat anything other than a brand-name liver-flavored dog food.
Such a cast of characters is signature McMurtry, and he coordinates their interaction with deft authorial skill, creating a terrific combination of comedy and drama in a story that explores the length and breadth of human sentiment and emotion. The Desert Rose is a thoroughly enjoyable one- or two-sitting read!
Despite her goddess-like status as a showgirl, Harmony nevertheless lives paycheck-to-paycheck, a condition she has mostly brought upon herself through her reflex generosity and throwing her love away on the worst kind of men. Her first husband, Ross, left her fourteen years ago to find his fortune in Reno. Her current flame is an utter rascal and reprobate who unfeelingly preys upon Harmony’s kindness. Most recently, he waited patiently at her mailbox, and stole from it a $1300 dollar insurance check in front of her very eyes.
But the plot of The Desert Rose—such as it is—is really about the changing dynamic between Harmony and her precocious, 16-year-old daughter, Pepper. It is surprising that the two are biologically connected, for every dimension of goodness in Harmony, Pepper reflects the exact opposite. She is selfish, self-centered, cynical, and sarcastic, and particularly hard-hearted and insulting towards her mother. Harmony’s DNA, of course, is simply not wired to allow feelings of hate, blame, and bad temper. Pepper is sexually active to an astonishing degree, but is invariably the dominant partner who calls the shots in break-ups and make-ups of relationships.
Pepper, if anything, is more beautiful than her mother, and it isn’t long before she catches the attention of Bonventre, The Stardust’s boss. She also crosses the path of Mel, a wealthy voyeur photographer, who takes pictures of Pepper modeling vintage lingerie. Though thirty years her senior, Mel proposes to Pepper, and shortly thereafter, Bonventre auditions her for a topless dancing role in his show. Harmony is in blissful ignorance of these events, though it is not without personal consequence to her. Harmony eventually finds out, of course, yet is fairly helpless to do anything. Meanwhile, brutish and insensitive Bonventre, with a history of treating his showgirls and other staff as commodities, suddenly develops a bizarre stab of conscience about a 16-year-old and her 39-year-old mother performing topless in the same show, and callously fires the latter.
This forces Harmony to consider life-changing options, and author Larry McMurtry takes readers through Harmony’s decisions with tenderness and skill. Along the way, he introduces and describes the fate of numerous colorful secondary characters. There is Harmony’s neighbor, sixty-something Myrtle, whose daily profession is hosting garage sales that sometimes net only 75 cents; there is Gary, the gay wardrobe man who dresses/undresses the showgirls; and there is fragile fellow-showgirl Jesse, who can only spare paranoia about the growing gap in her front teeth. In addition to an assortment of casino dealers, barmen, and restaurateurs, there are also Harmony’s peacocks, Myrtle’s furniture-eating goat, Maude, and Jesse’s spoiled poodle, Francois, who would sooner go on hunger strike than condescend to eat anything other than a brand-name liver-flavored dog food.
Such a cast of characters is signature McMurtry, and he coordinates their interaction with deft authorial skill, creating a terrific combination of comedy and drama in a story that explores the length and breadth of human sentiment and emotion. The Desert Rose is a thoroughly enjoyable one- or two-sitting read!
July 19, 2021
Larry McMurtry died this past March, and reading his obit inspired to me to pick up another one (or more) of his books. Lonesome Dove is on my VERY short list of best novels of all time, a definite bucket list read for any fan of literature, and I really enjoyed All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers (I mean, the title alone...). I was torn between this and Terms of Endearment, but since this is set in 1970s Las Vegas and it's about the life of a showgirl, that was too compelling (to me) a premise to ignore.
Well, it's just an okay book. I love him as a writer, but the main character here is an aging dancer in a topless review whose life is sort of falling apart, and she's this ultra-naive optimist that keeps grinning through a series of terrible events. It drove me sort of crazy, I wanted to step into the book and stage an emergency intervention in her life. Ultimately I think I was more frustrated by this book than anything else, although I still sort of enjoyed it. If you've never read McMurtry, don't start here though!
Well, it's just an okay book. I love him as a writer, but the main character here is an aging dancer in a topless review whose life is sort of falling apart, and she's this ultra-naive optimist that keeps grinning through a series of terrible events. It drove me sort of crazy, I wanted to step into the book and stage an emergency intervention in her life. Ultimately I think I was more frustrated by this book than anything else, although I still sort of enjoyed it. If you've never read McMurtry, don't start here though!
January 5, 2010
Fun read about low down life in Las Vegas.
March 29, 2023
This is a story about beginnings and endings…about all the possibilities of life when you're 16 years old and all the dead ends when you're feeling washed up and replaced by others. This is a story about a mother and daughter…about love and loathing, about family and fleeing. It's a universal story.
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry, this is the story of Harmony, an aging (at almost 39) Las Vegas showgirl who still works two shows topless six nights a week. She purposely lives outside the city where she raises peacocks. Harmony, who adores dressing in bold, brilliant colors, lives in a duplex with her 16-year-old daughter, Pepper. Her life is lonely, very lonely. Men don't even smile at her anymore, and the ones who do pay attention are losers who are either creepy or criminal or both. Her job is endangered…she is endangered. But Harmony is a survivor.
Pepper is everything Harmony is not. She is not only gorgeous, but also Pepper is confident and haughty. She is a gifted dancer, and her talents are quickly spotted by people who count. Pepper is a sexpot with an entourage of sketchy boyfriends, but then she is introduced to Mel, a 46-year-old fabulously wealthy and kind man, who pays her exorbitant sums of money to take photos and videos of her in scanty lingerie. Within hours, Pepper receives two extraordinary offers, each of which will forever change her life.
The bittersweet story line is filled with human drama that is shocking, heartrending, and hopeful—all at once. It is also a quintessential story about the desert city in which it is set, so much so that Las Vegas, Nevada is almost a character in the book. In addition, there is a colorful cast of characters, both human and animal.
My only quibble is that the novel is uneven. Most of it is so compelling I couldn't stop reading, but a few parts just drag on interminably. The chapters switch back and forth between Harmony and Pepper, using an unusual writing style. It's not quite stream-of-consciousness, but the continual onslaught of paragraph-length run-on sentences make it seem that way. It takes some getting used to, but then it just flows.
Bonus: Read the preface. McMurtry explains why he wrote the book and how he got the idea. It's fascinating reading!
Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Larry McMurtry, this is the story of Harmony, an aging (at almost 39) Las Vegas showgirl who still works two shows topless six nights a week. She purposely lives outside the city where she raises peacocks. Harmony, who adores dressing in bold, brilliant colors, lives in a duplex with her 16-year-old daughter, Pepper. Her life is lonely, very lonely. Men don't even smile at her anymore, and the ones who do pay attention are losers who are either creepy or criminal or both. Her job is endangered…she is endangered. But Harmony is a survivor.
Pepper is everything Harmony is not. She is not only gorgeous, but also Pepper is confident and haughty. She is a gifted dancer, and her talents are quickly spotted by people who count. Pepper is a sexpot with an entourage of sketchy boyfriends, but then she is introduced to Mel, a 46-year-old fabulously wealthy and kind man, who pays her exorbitant sums of money to take photos and videos of her in scanty lingerie. Within hours, Pepper receives two extraordinary offers, each of which will forever change her life.
The bittersweet story line is filled with human drama that is shocking, heartrending, and hopeful—all at once. It is also a quintessential story about the desert city in which it is set, so much so that Las Vegas, Nevada is almost a character in the book. In addition, there is a colorful cast of characters, both human and animal.
My only quibble is that the novel is uneven. Most of it is so compelling I couldn't stop reading, but a few parts just drag on interminably. The chapters switch back and forth between Harmony and Pepper, using an unusual writing style. It's not quite stream-of-consciousness, but the continual onslaught of paragraph-length run-on sentences make it seem that way. It takes some getting used to, but then it just flows.
Bonus: Read the preface. McMurtry explains why he wrote the book and how he got the idea. It's fascinating reading!
March 2, 2025
lovely read
Makes a great companion piece to The Last Showgirl, very similar in many ways. Either watch that first or read this first then watch it, you’ll see what I mean. This is a great book, it’s funny and touching and Larry shows so much love for these characters and their lives. Barely anything happens and yet so much happens, it’s a hangout movie in novel form, and that’s why I love it dearly. The only issues I would say is you can tell it was written in 3 weeks or so, it moves pretty fast. But it still has an eye for details which I very much appreciate. It’s also very dated in the way it handles certain things, but showing is not endorsing. I’ve always been fascinated by Las Vegas acts, it’s so interesting to be a celebrity in just one part of America. Maybe you’re not a big deal to everybody but to tourists and the older people who frequent the casino you’re the biggest deal. You know what? That’s pretty beautiful.
Makes a great companion piece to The Last Showgirl, very similar in many ways. Either watch that first or read this first then watch it, you’ll see what I mean. This is a great book, it’s funny and touching and Larry shows so much love for these characters and their lives. Barely anything happens and yet so much happens, it’s a hangout movie in novel form, and that’s why I love it dearly. The only issues I would say is you can tell it was written in 3 weeks or so, it moves pretty fast. But it still has an eye for details which I very much appreciate. It’s also very dated in the way it handles certain things, but showing is not endorsing. I’ve always been fascinated by Las Vegas acts, it’s so interesting to be a celebrity in just one part of America. Maybe you’re not a big deal to everybody but to tourists and the older people who frequent the casino you’re the biggest deal. You know what? That’s pretty beautiful.
April 27, 2023
A powerful book about Las Vegas showgirls who work in a casino. One of the women is a lead dancer who discovers that her career is coming to an end due to her age, so much of the story follows her path. She also raises peacocks, which are not suited to life in Vegas.
October 4, 2019
Look, a more fair rating would be two stars, but I like McMurtry. I don't know if the cowboy books as I've never read one) are as fun as the contemporary ones, and I doubt I will ever read a McMurtry western, but I'm so in the bag for him that I'd probably convince myself I liked it whether I do or not. Always been a romantic and his books are lad lit without quite so much "man" stink on them. I wouldn't say his women are that convincing (maybe even less so for actual women readers) but I like them. So even though Harmony has the same sort of implausibility issues as Aurora Greenway, her spirit is more Patsy + Emma and I enjoyed the time spent with her. Pepper might be a little less successful overall but I still derived a lot of pleasure from reading about a beautiful young person who, despite youth being beautiful, has the confusions that are also such a big part of being young.
Anyway, YMMV, but I liked it.
Anyway, YMMV, but I liked it.
February 27, 2010
And I thought McMurtry was only Lonesome Dove! The preface in the book I read by McMurtry describes how the Desert Rose evolved while he was still writing Lonesome Dove- I love it when the author does that! It adds some history and perspective to the story. Anyway it was a good pool side read. You had to love Harmony- she just keep moving forward. As a feminist her relationships with all these looser men was a bit of an irritant- but such is life. Daughter Pepper, in all her beauty, has a lot of difficult growing up to do (I heard there is a sequel that does just that!)
September 4, 2024
”The sadness of men, once it got into their eyes, affected her a lot, she sort of couldn’t bear it and would usually try and make it go away if the circumstances permitted her to, often they didn’t but sometimes they did, it was mainly a desire to kiss their sadness away that had caused her to bring so many of them home, a habit she knew Pepper didn’t appreciate but then Pepper wasn’t even old enough to notice the sadness in men or if she noticed she wasn’t too sympathetic.”
Set in 1980s Las Vegas, the protagonist of this novel is an ageing showgirl named Harmony. Harmony has a 16 year old daughter called Pepper, a gay best friend who is the dresser for the show, an eccentric neighbour named Maude and a history of bad boyfriends. She may not suffer from low self-esteem, but she certainly shows a complete lack of discrimination. Her only ambition seems to have been fulfilled the minute she left Tulsa and got hired on as a Tropicana showgirl.
Harmony is one of life’s natural optimists and she has the ability - some might call it obliviousness or cluelessness - to take both people and life’s challenges as they come. This attitude - along with a reputation for the best legs, breasts and face in Las Vegas - has served her well enough for a while, but her time is about to run out.
McMurtry claimed to have written this book in three weeks and it reads like an unfinished sketch. I read Terms of Endearment just after, and was struck by the notable difference in the quality of the two books. McMurtry is certainly capable of writing a good sentence, so I can only assume that this book’s predilection for comma splices, run-on sentences and sloppy diction was his attempt to capture Harmony’s “voice” - even though the novel is not narrated from a first-person point of view. I’m a huge fan of McMurtry’s work, but this voice never grabbed me.
There could have been an important conflict between Pepper’s rising star and her mother Harmony’s fading one, but the novel just creates the circumstances for the conflict without really exploring it - much less resolving it. It reads like half a story.
Colourful eccentrics are one of McMurtry’s stock-in-trades as a writer, but these are not his most winning or memorable. Perhaps the most interesting is the wealthy photographer who becomes enamoured with Pepper and wishes to marry her, but again, this plot point is introduced but never really developed.
Overall, this novel was a disappointment to me and I feel that 3 stars is an overly generous rating. I wouldn’t bother rereading it, although I would like to know what happens to Pepper.
Set in 1980s Las Vegas, the protagonist of this novel is an ageing showgirl named Harmony. Harmony has a 16 year old daughter called Pepper, a gay best friend who is the dresser for the show, an eccentric neighbour named Maude and a history of bad boyfriends. She may not suffer from low self-esteem, but she certainly shows a complete lack of discrimination. Her only ambition seems to have been fulfilled the minute she left Tulsa and got hired on as a Tropicana showgirl.
Harmony is one of life’s natural optimists and she has the ability - some might call it obliviousness or cluelessness - to take both people and life’s challenges as they come. This attitude - along with a reputation for the best legs, breasts and face in Las Vegas - has served her well enough for a while, but her time is about to run out.
McMurtry claimed to have written this book in three weeks and it reads like an unfinished sketch. I read Terms of Endearment just after, and was struck by the notable difference in the quality of the two books. McMurtry is certainly capable of writing a good sentence, so I can only assume that this book’s predilection for comma splices, run-on sentences and sloppy diction was his attempt to capture Harmony’s “voice” - even though the novel is not narrated from a first-person point of view. I’m a huge fan of McMurtry’s work, but this voice never grabbed me.
There could have been an important conflict between Pepper’s rising star and her mother Harmony’s fading one, but the novel just creates the circumstances for the conflict without really exploring it - much less resolving it. It reads like half a story.
Colourful eccentrics are one of McMurtry’s stock-in-trades as a writer, but these are not his most winning or memorable. Perhaps the most interesting is the wealthy photographer who becomes enamoured with Pepper and wishes to marry her, but again, this plot point is introduced but never really developed.
Overall, this novel was a disappointment to me and I feel that 3 stars is an overly generous rating. I wouldn’t bother rereading it, although I would like to know what happens to Pepper.
December 22, 2025
After reading ‘Lonesome Dove’, which this same author won a Pulitzer Prize for, I thought Larry McMurty was one of the few male authors who could write a truly convincing and female character.
I’m sorry to say but after reading this novel I’m just not so sure?
‘Desert Rose’ follows a mother in her late 30s who’s a Las Vegas showgirl and her daughter Pepper, who’s a young teenage girl who starts to enter the sleazy sex driven world of female performance in Vegas. I feel this novel could have done a lot more but in the end it’s uncomfortably accepting of the male gaze and overt sexualisation in Vegas.
And while, yes, this all could be McMurty subtly showing the internal monologues of two women who are begrudgingly or at times willingly accepting of objectification for money in Vegas. But because it’s written by a man and because I just don’t feel like this novel is ever really celebrating empowerment but pointing out seedy consequences of it, I just don’t think McMurty can be credited much for this novel as a ‘success’.
It does offer an ‘unflinching’ view of the Vegas showgirl world, if I was to sound like a fancy critic. Abusive male managers, guardian angel gay costume designers, sleazy boyfriends and uncomfortably generous old men surrounding themselves with girls in the name of art. It’s all there, all while paired with the consistently bonkers female friends who own goats or are addicted to drinking and attending garage sales.
My main issue is I’m just not sure what the unflinching view affords us as readers, beyond it being a compelling story because of McMurty’s storytelling prowess.
I’m sorry to say but after reading this novel I’m just not so sure?
‘Desert Rose’ follows a mother in her late 30s who’s a Las Vegas showgirl and her daughter Pepper, who’s a young teenage girl who starts to enter the sleazy sex driven world of female performance in Vegas. I feel this novel could have done a lot more but in the end it’s uncomfortably accepting of the male gaze and overt sexualisation in Vegas.
And while, yes, this all could be McMurty subtly showing the internal monologues of two women who are begrudgingly or at times willingly accepting of objectification for money in Vegas. But because it’s written by a man and because I just don’t feel like this novel is ever really celebrating empowerment but pointing out seedy consequences of it, I just don’t think McMurty can be credited much for this novel as a ‘success’.
It does offer an ‘unflinching’ view of the Vegas showgirl world, if I was to sound like a fancy critic. Abusive male managers, guardian angel gay costume designers, sleazy boyfriends and uncomfortably generous old men surrounding themselves with girls in the name of art. It’s all there, all while paired with the consistently bonkers female friends who own goats or are addicted to drinking and attending garage sales.
My main issue is I’m just not sure what the unflinching view affords us as readers, beyond it being a compelling story because of McMurty’s storytelling prowess.
September 27, 2022
The Desert Rose, the story of a dim witted Vegas showgirl and her unbearable teenage daughter, isn’t a major work from McMurtry, but it’s enjoyable and engaging. When I say it isn’t major, I mean that both in the sense of emotional resonance and length/scope (he wrote it in three weeks while taking a break from Lonesome Dove); but the characters are, as always in McMurtry, so real you can almost touch them, and the writing style is unique to the characters’ voices. He paints a vivid portrait of the Vegas Strip, of Harmony and Pepper, and the various friends, enemies, and lovers who populate their world. Their Vegas is one of quick attachments and betrayals, as well as quick nuptials, part of why Harmony doesn’t bat an eye when her 16 year old daughter becomes engaged to a 45 year old man. Oh boy… This is also one of McMurtry’s quickest reads (so far), so while it’s not necessarily essential reading, I still consider it time well spent.
August 30, 2024
Book is well-written and has comedic situations and iconic characters shining light on life in Las Vegas in the 80s, with the dying profession of showgirl. I only kind of disliked the Pepper perspective because I kept waiting for the author to reveal a twisted kink or comment in any way how a relationship between a sixteen-year dancer and a middle-aged producer is quite horrifying. Harmony's arc was really bittersweet and cathartic in its own way and I thought her naive behavior was very amusing to read.
September 18, 2024
Could read him all day
December 30, 2025
Nobody writes a character like McMurtry. He can take any topic and write a character that you find likeable and relatable.
November 4, 2018
This is a sympathetic, warm, and sad-funny portrait of a Vegas showgirl named Harmony, and her teenage daughter Pepper. Harmony is in her late-thirties, and while she doesn't fret over her appearance as much as the other girls at the Tropicana, the boss's comments about her breasts no longer being the same size (as well as some other digs) seem ill omens that her time wearing peacock plumes and standing on a pedestal (showgirls don't dance, as I learned herein) is almost over.
Pepper, Harmony's daughter, is not so much the standard rebellious teen as she is a girl who regards her mother with pity, as a kind of eternal innocent with bad taste in men, while also sort of secretly being jealous of her mom (even though, by the admission of both women, Pepper is the more worldly and more beautiful of the two). It's complicated.
The rest of the cast of this character-driven shortish novel is rounded out by the kind of low-rollers and hard luck cases one expects to see living full-time in Vegas rather than just fading a few grand on the green baize, including denizens of a surreal trailer park where peacocks have the run of the land, a showgirl who takes a nasty plunge from her pedestal suspended on guy wires, and a ventriloquist who's in and out of the hospital for his depressions/alcoholism. The one exception to the down-at-heel crowd is a rich and somewhat reclusive older man who takes an interest in the younger Pepper, and begins a strange courtship with the young lady that perplexes her as much as it fascinates her.
That's about the short and long of it, or at least what I can get away with revealing in this review without risking some major spoilers. The author, Larry McMurtry, is probably best known for his sprawling Western opus "Lonesome Dove," and his style reminds me a bit of Cormac McCarthy's, at times hard-bitten and minimalist with a kind of run-on sentence quality that might be effective at showing stream-of-consciousness, but isn't really my cup of tea as a reader.
That said, the characters, the humor, and the verisimilitude of the whole affair made me willing to put my stylistic quibbles aside, and accept that sentences with four or five coordinating clauses (reminiscent of Kerouac's Benzedrine-inspired typewritten scrolls) were just the price I had to pay to get inside the head of this sympathetic woman who makes her way through this cruel world with some grace and understanding, thereby making it all a little less cruel.
Books like "The Desert Rose" are good reminders that humanity isn't all bad. I need reminders like that every once in awhile. Recommended, although mileage will definitely vary, as taste is everything and is quite subjective here.
Pepper, Harmony's daughter, is not so much the standard rebellious teen as she is a girl who regards her mother with pity, as a kind of eternal innocent with bad taste in men, while also sort of secretly being jealous of her mom (even though, by the admission of both women, Pepper is the more worldly and more beautiful of the two). It's complicated.
The rest of the cast of this character-driven shortish novel is rounded out by the kind of low-rollers and hard luck cases one expects to see living full-time in Vegas rather than just fading a few grand on the green baize, including denizens of a surreal trailer park where peacocks have the run of the land, a showgirl who takes a nasty plunge from her pedestal suspended on guy wires, and a ventriloquist who's in and out of the hospital for his depressions/alcoholism. The one exception to the down-at-heel crowd is a rich and somewhat reclusive older man who takes an interest in the younger Pepper, and begins a strange courtship with the young lady that perplexes her as much as it fascinates her.
That's about the short and long of it, or at least what I can get away with revealing in this review without risking some major spoilers. The author, Larry McMurtry, is probably best known for his sprawling Western opus "Lonesome Dove," and his style reminds me a bit of Cormac McCarthy's, at times hard-bitten and minimalist with a kind of run-on sentence quality that might be effective at showing stream-of-consciousness, but isn't really my cup of tea as a reader.
That said, the characters, the humor, and the verisimilitude of the whole affair made me willing to put my stylistic quibbles aside, and accept that sentences with four or five coordinating clauses (reminiscent of Kerouac's Benzedrine-inspired typewritten scrolls) were just the price I had to pay to get inside the head of this sympathetic woman who makes her way through this cruel world with some grace and understanding, thereby making it all a little less cruel.
Books like "The Desert Rose" are good reminders that humanity isn't all bad. I need reminders like that every once in awhile. Recommended, although mileage will definitely vary, as taste is everything and is quite subjective here.
November 6, 2025
this was basically a big nothing sandwich ???
i did like the flow of the writing though and i think sean baker should adapt this damn near immediately.
i did like the flow of the writing though and i think sean baker should adapt this damn near immediately.
Read
May 6, 2023This novel I have decided to read because I want to read longer novels and Larry McMurtry wrote lots of longer novels and my local library has a copy of this novel’s sequel, and it’s 500 pages or so, and this one is short, but it sets me up later on. Also, I am looking to move back into McMurtry’s fiction, especially his contemporary fiction–whether this means contemporary in year published or contemporary in year set. This novel takes place in Las Vegas in the 1970s and is about a 39 year old stripper. You can imagine her position is rather precarious.
What struck me immediately about this novel from the outset is the position of Las Vegas in our collective consciousness as the West in general. I have never been to Las Vegas personally, and in my travels out west, I flew over Tahoe en route to Sacramento and San Francisco and saw lots of episodes of Reno 911 and have seen tons of Las Vegas movies. But! But, do I consider Las Vegas to be The West? I dunno. I don’t mean to deny it its status, but I also don’t think of it much beyond being Las Vegas, if that makes sense.
So anyway, all that said, it’s a solid novel. It’s very early 1980s and reminds me a lot of the straightforward, if cut to the chase, narration of Raymond Carver. It’s not a complex or challenging novel and given Larry McMurtry’s own sense of the novel (he hates it) I am more inclined to be interested in it than he is. Because of my Larry McMurtry kick, I don’t know that I can be trusted with it, but I didn’t hate it, find it interesting, and think it’s worthy of not dismissing it.
What struck me immediately about this novel from the outset is the position of Las Vegas in our collective consciousness as the West in general. I have never been to Las Vegas personally, and in my travels out west, I flew over Tahoe en route to Sacramento and San Francisco and saw lots of episodes of Reno 911 and have seen tons of Las Vegas movies. But! But, do I consider Las Vegas to be The West? I dunno. I don’t mean to deny it its status, but I also don’t think of it much beyond being Las Vegas, if that makes sense.
So anyway, all that said, it’s a solid novel. It’s very early 1980s and reminds me a lot of the straightforward, if cut to the chase, narration of Raymond Carver. It’s not a complex or challenging novel and given Larry McMurtry’s own sense of the novel (he hates it) I am more inclined to be interested in it than he is. Because of my Larry McMurtry kick, I don’t know that I can be trusted with it, but I didn’t hate it, find it interesting, and think it’s worthy of not dismissing it.
April 1, 2017
I kept thinking "Larry McMurtry wrote this book???" It is totally not what I expected, definitely not his best work, and a disappointment for me. Harmony is a 39 year-old Las Vegas showgirl who is on the way out while her beautiful daughter, Pepper, is on her way in as a lead dancer in the show. Harmony, once Miss Las Vegas Showgirl, is the beautiful star of the show and descends on a disc two times a night in a feathered costume. In the day time she raises three peacocks in her backyard. Her daughter has been training to be a dancer since she was a little girl. Since the manager doesn't want both a mother and a daughter in the show, Harmony is fired on her birthday
.
Every character in this book is dysfunctional with not an intelligent one in the bunch. They are all quirky too. Her best friend, Jessie, is a hypochondriac. Her neurotic costume manager, Gary, is gay. Her next door neighbor, Myrtle, has a perpetual garage sale going and a goat named Maud for a pet. Harmony's manager, Bonventre, never says a kind word. Her daughter is sulky, immature, and not nice to her mother. Harmony also has a revolving-door parade of boyfriends who are second-rate. And Mel, an older very rich man, would like to marry sixteen year old Pepper. He also likes to photograph her in vintage lingerie, but he's a "nice man". The list goes on... I think I will stick with Larry McMurtry westerns in the future.
.
Every character in this book is dysfunctional with not an intelligent one in the bunch. They are all quirky too. Her best friend, Jessie, is a hypochondriac. Her neurotic costume manager, Gary, is gay. Her next door neighbor, Myrtle, has a perpetual garage sale going and a goat named Maud for a pet. Harmony's manager, Bonventre, never says a kind word. Her daughter is sulky, immature, and not nice to her mother. Harmony also has a revolving-door parade of boyfriends who are second-rate. And Mel, an older very rich man, would like to marry sixteen year old Pepper. He also likes to photograph her in vintage lingerie, but he's a "nice man". The list goes on... I think I will stick with Larry McMurtry westerns in the future.
January 21, 2008
Harmony is a Las Vegas showgirl. At night she's a lead dancer in a casino; during the day she raises peacocks. She's one of a dying breed of dancers, faced with fewer and fewer jobs and an even bleaker future. Yet she maintains a calm cheerfulness in that arid neon landscape of supermarkets, drive-in wedding chapels and all-night casinos.
This is the first Larry McMurtry book I have read, and I did really enjoy it. I don't think I have read a book set in Las Vegas before, and certinly not one about a showgirl. Its is a sweet, and sometimes sad book, I hought, the relationship between Harmony and her daughter Pepper is a difficult one, neither of them really understanding the other. Harmony, a woman who turns 39 during the book (I was 39 last weekend) is a woman whose life hasn't lived up to her expectations, and dreams, and she is forever looking back to what she thought of as better times. A gentle reflective read, which makes me look forward to reading more by this author.
This is the first Larry McMurtry book I have read, and I did really enjoy it. I don't think I have read a book set in Las Vegas before, and certinly not one about a showgirl. Its is a sweet, and sometimes sad book, I hought, the relationship between Harmony and her daughter Pepper is a difficult one, neither of them really understanding the other. Harmony, a woman who turns 39 during the book (I was 39 last weekend) is a woman whose life hasn't lived up to her expectations, and dreams, and she is forever looking back to what she thought of as better times. A gentle reflective read, which makes me look forward to reading more by this author.
September 9, 2012
seems like i read at least one mcmurtry story...although, alas...i've not marked one as read...so this is the 1st i will mark as read...when i've completed it...started it cause a friend recommended it...and i began the story a week ago...
...while on a flight...a week's vacation and i don't read a thing all the week long...
this one is set in las vegas...where the wife and i went...along with what seemed like thousands of others...
update, finished...9/11/2012...tuesday, 9:35 p.m. e.s.t.
yeah...so, ummm...i wish i'd read this straight through, w/o the stop-over in vegas...vacation and all...a bit of a hoot, reading about places there...flamingo, mgm...circus circus...and so forth...
took a bit to get back into the story...what w/being about 25% done when we're flying over the midwest...one of them big honkin 727-thingies...harmony & pepper...nice ending...potato face.
...while on a flight...a week's vacation and i don't read a thing all the week long...
this one is set in las vegas...where the wife and i went...along with what seemed like thousands of others...
update, finished...9/11/2012...tuesday, 9:35 p.m. e.s.t.
yeah...so, ummm...i wish i'd read this straight through, w/o the stop-over in vegas...vacation and all...a bit of a hoot, reading about places there...flamingo, mgm...circus circus...and so forth...
took a bit to get back into the story...what w/being about 25% done when we're flying over the midwest...one of them big honkin 727-thingies...harmony & pepper...nice ending...potato face.
December 22, 2017
I honestly rushed through this book because I couldn’t wait for it to be over! I was initially going to rate this as one star, but the end of the book was better than the beginning. I hated the run-on sentences that I’ve seen many others complain about as well! I also couldn’t feel sorry for the main character, Harmony; her life was full of insecurities due to worrying about aging and fleeting beauty, and her mind was always on attracting (horrible) men. I had more sympathy for her daughter, Pepper, since she was a naive child and didn’t really have a good mother figure to follow. There wasn’t a lot of depth to the characters in this book, which was disappointing to me. Apparently there is a sequel coming out soon - I may check it out just to see how the stories of Harmony and Pepper end...
March 28, 2025
I think a lot of people read books and try to insert their own values and worldview into a protagonist, and find themselves disappointed when the character disappoints or upsets them. So I had an interesting time reading people’s grievances that caused them to give lower ratings.
As a reader who was brought up in a stable home and was raised with different values than the characters in this book, there are very few events in this book that I can relate to or condone. Instead of judging the book harshly, it made me appreciate that my personal life gets to exist in a bubble where I can’t relate to the characters. You don’t need to relate to the characters in order to appreciate this book.
McMurty did an interesting job of showing just how dysfunctional and unstable life can be. Yes, Harmony was vapid, generally clueless, and didn’t have any meaningful relationships with romantic partners or her family. Yes, Pepper was manipulative, impulsive, selfish and racist. These people exist, and many people experience life in much worse ways than were showcased in this story.
Frankly, it is a place of privilege to be able to judge the type of opportunistic (I’m using that word both neutrally and negatively) behaviors that we see carried out. Harmony values, and is valued for, her looks. Her career ever since she was a teenager is to be pretty in a show, that is the extent of her skills. As a result her self-worth is based on the male-gaze. She doesn’t care to be unwanted, and she accepts a lot of shit from men as a result of it.
Some of her hookups don’t seem to be something that she is fully into. Enthusiastic consent is probably something that was never taught to her, nor something that spontaneously occurred to her. If she is in a situation where a man wants to have sex, she lets him have sex. She also probably never gave Pepper any sort of helpful feedback, much less modeled, on how to have a healthy relationship.
There are a lot of parallels and dissimilarities between Harmony and Pepper. Both are gorgeous, both are taken advantage of at a young age by older wealthy men that offer them a semblance of stability under immoral circumstances, and both take chances as they fall into their lap without really having firm plans for their future. What I found most interesting was the contrast between their perceptions of men.
While Harmony had stars in her eyes and was often admired for her positive spin on life, Pepper was jaded from a young age. Men were often given a blanket forgiveness from Harmony, meanwhile Pepper’s exposure to the men that her mom had relationships with had her critical of men and looking to exploit them for her gain. Neither of them had the background or skills to find the middle ground to prioritize finding a mature partner or establishing healthy boundaries with them.
The book ends with Harmony reuniting with her long-gone husband/Pepper’s dad, who hasn’t bothered to be actually involved with either of them for over a decade. And by reuniting… I mean the literal reunion. There is about a page of writing that takes place after she steps off the bus to him waiting for her. His contribution to his family is sending birthday cards, and this absent relationship is somehow Harmony’s longest lasting connection to a straight man where she isn’t being exploited or taken advantage of.
One reviewer was disappointed that there was no huge climatic drama in this book between mother and daughter. There is enough tension and intrigue in this book without that. All in all, this book had made me reflect quite a bit. This would probably make an interesting book club book.
As a reader who was brought up in a stable home and was raised with different values than the characters in this book, there are very few events in this book that I can relate to or condone. Instead of judging the book harshly, it made me appreciate that my personal life gets to exist in a bubble where I can’t relate to the characters. You don’t need to relate to the characters in order to appreciate this book.
McMurty did an interesting job of showing just how dysfunctional and unstable life can be. Yes, Harmony was vapid, generally clueless, and didn’t have any meaningful relationships with romantic partners or her family. Yes, Pepper was manipulative, impulsive, selfish and racist. These people exist, and many people experience life in much worse ways than were showcased in this story.
Frankly, it is a place of privilege to be able to judge the type of opportunistic (I’m using that word both neutrally and negatively) behaviors that we see carried out. Harmony values, and is valued for, her looks. Her career ever since she was a teenager is to be pretty in a show, that is the extent of her skills. As a result her self-worth is based on the male-gaze. She doesn’t care to be unwanted, and she accepts a lot of shit from men as a result of it.
Some of her hookups don’t seem to be something that she is fully into. Enthusiastic consent is probably something that was never taught to her, nor something that spontaneously occurred to her. If she is in a situation where a man wants to have sex, she lets him have sex. She also probably never gave Pepper any sort of helpful feedback, much less modeled, on how to have a healthy relationship.
There are a lot of parallels and dissimilarities between Harmony and Pepper. Both are gorgeous, both are taken advantage of at a young age by older wealthy men that offer them a semblance of stability under immoral circumstances, and both take chances as they fall into their lap without really having firm plans for their future. What I found most interesting was the contrast between their perceptions of men.
While Harmony had stars in her eyes and was often admired for her positive spin on life, Pepper was jaded from a young age. Men were often given a blanket forgiveness from Harmony, meanwhile Pepper’s exposure to the men that her mom had relationships with had her critical of men and looking to exploit them for her gain. Neither of them had the background or skills to find the middle ground to prioritize finding a mature partner or establishing healthy boundaries with them.
The book ends with Harmony reuniting with her long-gone husband/Pepper’s dad, who hasn’t bothered to be actually involved with either of them for over a decade. And by reuniting… I mean the literal reunion. There is about a page of writing that takes place after she steps off the bus to him waiting for her. His contribution to his family is sending birthday cards, and this absent relationship is somehow Harmony’s longest lasting connection to a straight man where she isn’t being exploited or taken advantage of.
One reviewer was disappointed that there was no huge climatic drama in this book between mother and daughter. There is enough tension and intrigue in this book without that. All in all, this book had made me reflect quite a bit. This would probably make an interesting book club book.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews