[In Somebody's Darling, an] arresting, kindly and wry novel about love, hope and fame, Larry McMurtry manages to be funny as he slouches through Hollywood without ever becoming cruel, cynical or mean-spirited. There is something about everyone here—and something for everyone who has ever felt longing….
McMurtry is a writer's writer, and most of the real readers in America have read one or more of his books, Horseman, Pass By; All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers; The Last Picture Show, among others. I had some wrong-headed idea he was sort of the Clint Eastwood of serious writers—his books would be, I was sure, lean tough books about cowboys being sad in bars. I have some catching up to do. To be sure, there are cowboys here in Somebody's Darling—the craggy, footloose romantics, the workers of Hollywood who regard productions as cattle drives and then raise hell in the canyons, take off in their big old convertibles—or sit around talking about the big, bad, good old days.
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