Sad and sweet yet rigorously unsentimental. Mr McMurtry has the power to clutch the heart and also somehow to exhilarate' New YorkerBittersweet, funny and touching, The Desert Rose is the story of Harmony, a Las Vegas showgirl. At night she's a lead dancer in a casino, during the day she raises peacocks. She's one of a dying breed of dancers, faced with fewer and fewer jobs and an even bleaker future. But while her star is fading, her beautiful, cynical daughter Pepper's is on the rise. Yet Harmony remains wistful and optimistic through it all. She endures in that arid neon landscape of supermarkets, drive-in wedding chapels, and all-night gambling. She is the unexpected blossom in the wasteland, the tough and tender desert rose.'It is quite impossible not to fall in love with Harmony while reading The Desert Rose . . . in a quite unassuming way, a beautiful little book' Washington Post 'The astounding thing about Harmony . . . is that she really does have a heart of gold, and despite everything, she is wholly believable, oddly moving, even lovable' Publishers Weekly