Synopsis
The colorful residents of Tyrone County, Texas--Spud Merton, a bar owner; Lucinda Sue Ghertz, the prettiest woman in town but one who cannot find love; and Lucinda Marie Wintergarten, seventeen going on thirty--stake out their identities in Bigger 'n Dallas, a honky-tonk dance hall
Reviews
Bigger 'n Dallas, the bar-dancehall at the edge of the small West Texas town of Tyrone, is central to the lives of the 13 characters whose stories are related in respective chapters here. Most of the characters are linked in some way, and by the near-disastrous climax, which involves six of them, we've become involved with the lot. Evoking climate and personalities with affection, Tidmore offers a varied cast: Lucille Marie Wintergarten is "17 years old and on her way to 30 with no stops in between." Her aunt Lucinda is a beauty whose image is marred by an unmoving left eye, 'like a headlight." Jerry Wintergarten, "'a man who tried to do right," is confused by his wife, daughter and everything else. Independent Sharon Ann Morrison has "been lonely sometimes, but that's often what strength costs." Among the book's joys are a wonderful rant by a late-night-radio preacher, a dreamy description of baton-twirling and Lucinda's getting-ready-for-the-bar routine. The chapter devoted to Sharon could be vintage John O'Hara. Tidmore, who wastes no words, is someone to watch.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
A pleasant, regional collection of interlinked sketches- -divided into 13 chapters--about small-town citizens of western Texas: at its best, a kind of prairie version of Ellen Gilchrist. Bigger 'N Dallas is a honky-tonk dance hall in Tyrone County (county seat Tyrone, pop. 2000), which is part of the Liano Estacado--a barren, endless prairie. Widower Spud Merton, owner of the honky-tonk, is a fishing aficionado; to his wife, Ethel, ``fishing was the rival she couldn't compete with.'' After the folksy introduction to Merton, the book settles into a largely predictable series of stories about men and women who are sometimes involved with one another: Lucinda Sue Ghertz has ``the sort of figure that made men turn to get a second look,'' but her left eye ``pointed always at the same spot, like a headlight.'' She returns from Denver, and her bleak life is refreshed only by an ex-hippie violin player. Her 17-year-old niece, Lucille Marie Wintergarten, has a one-month affair with a Mexican who works at her daddy's cotton gin; her daddy finds out and arranges to have the lover deported. Lucille's parents, Diane and Jerry, get their own chapters: Diane is a former cheerleader who feels like ``she'd dropped the baton of her life,'' and Jerry suspects his wife of an affair. Meanwhile, Leon Stoner, who runs the local liquor store after a long-ago artistic sojourn to Paris, has a one-night stand with Lucille, and Leon's father Roy, in a touching chapter, realizes that ``as a person gets older the circle around 'em draws in closer and closer, like a target disappearing down to the bull's-eye.'' Sad-sack figures out of country-music songs make themselves at home in Larry McMurtry country. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Tyrone County is home to the finest cross section of Texas types to ever party down on a Saturday night. To make partying easy for those who like it most, Spud Merton operates Bigger 'n Dallas, the swingingest honky-tonk on the west Texas plains. The author, himself a west Texas native, takes a long look at the locals most likely to patronize Bigger 'n Dallas, and a few who wouldn't. In so doing, he lays the groundwork for a near-tragic incident involving Spud, several of his clientele, and at least one local who never set foot in his establishment. Tidmore's storyline is thin, developing almost as an afterthought long after the reader has given up wondering when it will start. If the plot lacks substance, however, the characters do not. In setting the scene for his little tragedy, Tidmore has created as dazzling an array of just plain folks as ever danced a two-step, shot a gun, or fished for mud cats from midnight till dawn.
- Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. at Carbondale Lib.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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