Harmony is the optimistic, resilient Las Vegas ex-showgirl who returns from work at a Las Vegas recycling plant one day to discover that her beautiful, beloved daughter, Pepper, has died of AIDS. In an effort to right herself and come to grips with her loss, Harmony leaves for New York City with her five-year-old son Eddie and her two quarrelsome sisters, Neddie and Pat, to seek out Pepper's girlfriend - and to find a way to understand and accept Pepper's death.

At once an odyssey sending its characters on a journey across America - from Las Vegas to New York, to the White House, to rural Oklahoma - and a story of loss and recovery, The Late Child is McMurtry at his best. Along the way, we meet a host of engaging characters: a teenage hooker and her boyfriend, Sonny Le Song; Omar, Abdul and Salah, three Indian taxi entrepreneurs; and a dog named Iggy, who becomes a national celebrity and gets to meet the President of the United States.

The eccentricities of these people are dwarfed by Harmony's family when Harmony, Eddie and Iggy make it to the Oklahoma panhandle. Having come to understand that hers are not the only human expectations to fail and that there is hope for the future, if only in the next generation, Harmony finally arrives home.