Misplaced Pages

The Desert Rose is a 1983 novel by Larry McMurtry about a Las Vegas showgirl. It was his ninth novel. McMurtry wrote the book after visiting Las Vegas to research a film script about that city. The movie was never made.

The Los Angeles Times called it "warm and funny".

McMurtry always had a great deal of affection for the book saying that he suffered "a literary gloom that lasted from 1975 until 1983, when the miracle of The Desert Rose snapped me out of it." He wrote the book in 21 days saying it was "a book that seemed to flow out of me as rapidly as I could type. The Desert Rose was supposed to have been a screenplay, but, to my intense relief, it came out a novel. I had hardly written a sentence I liked for eight years: to actually enjoy my own prose again was a big, big deal."

McMutry reflected, "I have been interested all my life in vanishing breeds... My interest in the melancholy of those who practice dying crafts has been lifelong and is evident in many books. The Desert Rose, for example, was written at a time when there was a shift in taste in Las Vegas, away from the big-bosomed showgirls. Small-breasted dancers came to be preferred, and Harmony, my showgirl, was out of a job, like the cowboys in my other fiction."

McMurtry later wrote a sequel to the book called The Late Child.

Proposed Film

In 1986, Rob Cohen of Taft-Barish Productions hired Terrence Malick to adapt the novel into a screenplay for Barry Levinson to direct. In 1987, it was reported that Levinson would direct the film. In 1996 Goldie Hawn said a writer was doing a screenplay of the novel for Hawn to star in and produce. In 2002, it was reported that Nora Ephron would direct the film adaptation and co-write the screenplay with Delia Ephron, and Laurence Mark producing the film for Columbia Pictures.

As of 2024, no film has resulted.

References

1. "The Desert Rose: A Novel". Kirkus Reviews. September 1, 1983.
2. "Author McMurtry stresses originality, ease in writing". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. 31 March 1983. p. 16.
3. "A gallent flower of the sere Las Vegas sands". The Los Angeles Times. 4 September 1983. p. 7.
4. McMurtry, 2009 p 84
5. McMurtry 2009 p 91
6. McMurtry, Larry (2001). Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen : reflections at sixty and beyond. Simon & Schuster. p. 185.
7. Biskind, Peter (December 1998). "The Runaway Genius". Vanity Fair. Retrieved 13 September 2024.
8. Trout, William C. (13 June 1987). "GLIMPSES". United Press International. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
9. "Carries around the globe". Newsday. 15 September 1996. p. C29.
10. Fleming Jr., Michael (May 29, 2002). "Columbia replants McMurtry's 'Rose'". Variety. Retrieved October 21, 2024.

Notes

• McMurtry, Larry (2009). Literary Life: A Second Memoir. Simon & Schuster.
• McMurtry, Larry (2010). Hollywood: A Third Memoir. Simon & Schuster.

• 1983 novels
• Novels by Larry McMurtry
• Novels set in Las Vegas