Larry McMurtry says he’s writing another volume of memoirs (to be called Writing, a companion to his earlier Books). Somewhat surprisingly, he’s also writing a fifth installment to his Last Picture Show series.

I say ‘somewhat surprisingly’ because his last novel, When the Light Goes seemed to end the whole saga by, more or less, petering out. Duane, the main character through Picture Show and Texasville , has returned from the impulsive trip to Egypt that ended Duane’s Depressed. But now he’s found that Thalia (McMurtry’s stand-in for Archer City) has become “a miserable, windblown, drying-up town.” His wife is dead, his daughters live in Dallas, and his son runs Duane’s oil-drilling business from Wichita Falls. And Duane himself has some seriously clogged arteries.

Just what McMurtry can write about after that is anybody’s guess, but whatever it is, he says it’ll be called Rhino Ranch.

You can read my review of When the Light Goes here.

You can read Fritz Lanham’s Q&A with McMurtry here.