Reading Order
The Evening Star Reading Order
The Evening Star (1992) by Larry McMurtry is the sequel to Terms of Endearment — set about 15 years after Emma's death, with Aurora Greenway now in her late 60s, raising Emma's three children (Tommy, now a convicted killer; Danny, a drifter; and Melanie, a teenager) in her Houston house while being pursued by a new psychiatrist suitor named Jerry Bruckner and managing a catastrophic household. The novel is McMurtry's most emotionally complex — it is funnier and more chaotic than Terms of Endearment, and it adds a philosophical dimension (in Aurora's sessions with her psychiatrist) that the original novel did not have. The Evening Star is also the novel where McMurtry is most explicit about what Aurora Greenway represents: an old-fashioned kind of American female energy — formidable, vain, loving, ridiculous, impossible — that is being replaced by a flatter, more therapeutic culture. The novel's title refers to Venus, the evening star, which Aurora watches through her bedroom window in the evenings, and to the sense that Aurora herself is something old and brilliant that is in its last phase of visibility. The Evening Star was adapted into a 1996 film with Shirley MacLaine, but without the energy of the original film.
Where to start
The Evening Star — read Terms of Endearment first. The sequel requires knowledge of Emma's death and the characters established in the original; without that context, The Evening Star is a domestic comedy; with it, it is an emotional continuation.
Complete The Evening Star Book List
- 1Buy
The Evening Star
Larry McMurtry·1992·The novel — Aurora in her late 60s, raising Emma's problematic children, a new psychiatrist suitor, the household in chaos; the sequel to Terms of Endearment and the fullest portrait of Aurora in old age. - 2Buy
Terms of Endearment
Larry McMurtry·1975·The essential predecessor — the Pulitzer Prize-winning original; Aurora and Emma's relationship, Garrett Breedlove, Emma's illness; all the emotional weight of The Evening Star depends on having experienced Terms of Endearment. - 3Buy
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry·1985·McMurtry's masterpiece — the companion in his full range; the Pulitzer Prize-winning Western epic is the other pole from The Evening Star's domestic Houston focus. - 4Buy
The Last Picture Show
Larry McMurtry·1966·McMurtry's breakout novel — the companion in his Texas fiction; Anarene's small-town Texas is the earlier, rural counterpart to The Evening Star's Houston domestic world. - 5Buy
The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen·2001·Franzen's National Book Award-winning novel — the companion in American fiction about difficult aging parents and their grown children; Alfred Lambert's decline is the literary version of what Aurora is experiencing in The Evening Star. - 6Buy
Olive Kitteridge
Elizabeth Strout·2008·Strout's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel in stories — the companion in American fiction about a formidable, difficult woman at a certain age; Olive's impossible personality and her genuine love are the Maine coastal version of Aurora's Houston personality. - 7Buy
An Unfinished Season
Ward Just·2004·Just's novel about old money in Chicago — the companion in American fiction about the aging of a certain kind of American class and style; Just's portrait of a world that is fading is the equivalent of McMurtry's portrait of Aurora as the last of her kind. - 8Buy
Ordinary People
Judith Guest·1976·Guest's debut — the companion in American fiction about a family trying to function in the aftermath of loss and grief; the Jarrett family's struggle is the Midwestern, less comic version of Aurora's household chaos in The Evening Star.
The Evening Star — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Evening Star about?
The Evening Star is set in the late 1980s in Houston, approximately 15 years after Emma's death at the end of Terms of Endearment. Aurora Greenway is now in her late 60s, living in her Victorian house and raising Emma's three adult children: Tommy (who is in prison for murder), Danny (a drifter with no direction), and Melanie (a teenager who is making the kind of choices Aurora cannot approve). Garrett Breedlove makes an appearance but has declined into old age; Aurora's new suitor is Jerry Bruckner, a psychiatrist who becomes her therapist and then her lover. The novel is organized around Aurora's sessions with Jerry and her management of the chaotic household — interspersed with Tommy's prison scenes, Danny's wandering, and Melanie's teenage crises.
How does The Evening Star compare to Terms of Endearment?
The Evening Star is more chaotic, funnier, and philosophically more ambitious than Terms of Endearment, but it lacks the tragic emotional core that makes the original novel so powerful — Emma's death and the grief that follows it give Terms of Endearment its weight, and The Evening Star does not have a comparable emotional climax. What The Evening Star does better than Terms of Endearment is portrait Aurora as a character in her own right rather than primarily as a mother: the sessions with Jerry Bruckner give Aurora an opportunity to reflect on her life, her choices, and what she is, and these sessions are among the most interesting passages in McMurtry's domestic fiction. The Evening Star is the novel where McMurtry is most explicit about Aurora's meaning.
What happened to Tommy, Danny, and Melanie after Terms of Endearment?
Emma's children have not thrived: Tommy, the eldest, is in prison for murder — he killed a convenience store clerk in a robbery gone wrong; he is angry, intelligent, and damaged. Danny, the middle child, is a drifter without purpose or direction, making no commitments and forming no attachments. Melanie, the youngest (who was still a child when Emma died), is a teenager making the kind of choices that Aurora cannot approve of. The three children represent different kinds of failure to thrive after loss: Tommy's violence, Danny's passivity, and Melanie's vulnerability. Aurora's management of all three is the comedy and tragedy of The Evening Star — she is still formidably herself, but what she is managing has become more genuinely difficult than the suitors and social situations of Terms of Endearment.
What does The Evening Star say about Aurora's significance?
The Evening Star is McMurtry's most explicit statement about what Aurora Greenway represents. In her sessions with Jerry Bruckner, Aurora reflects on what kind of woman she is and what the world she lives in makes possible for women like her. McMurtry seems to be suggesting that Aurora is a type — a formidable, vain, loving, impossible woman of a certain class and era — that the therapeutic culture of the late 20th century cannot accommodate. The psychiatrist who tries to understand Aurora through therapy is being gently mocked: Aurora is too particular, too much herself, for any therapeutic framework to contain. She is a character who belongs to a time when personality was allowed to be extravagant in ways that the flatter, more managed contemporary world does not encourage.
What should I read after The Evening Star?
After The Evening Star, Terms of Endearment is the essential companion if you haven't already read it. For McMurtry's other major work, Lonesome Dove and The Last Picture Show are the most important. For American fiction about formidable women at a certain age, Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge and Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections are the most important companions. For the Houston domestic tradition specifically, Anne Tyler's Breathing Lessons is an important companion in American domestic fiction about women managing households and grown children.
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