Real Texas Books

Texas authors and novels

Editor’s Note:  This is part 10 of How To Be Texan, Wherever You Are.  It’s an up and coming eBook on how to maintain your Texan ways, no matter where you live.  Some of us fortunate souls still live in the Great State and others are Ex-Pats who were forced to leave by marriage, jobs, or circumstance.  You all however, have a great heritage and you can still be Texan, Wherever You Are….now grab a Texas based book and have a good read.

Novels of the Western genre have a true hero in West Texas by the name of Elmer Kelton.  Yes, that’s me with Elmer at a function in San Angelo, Texas.  This modest and unassuming man has written 60 western novels including the aforementioned “The Time It Never Rained” and “The Good Old Boys” which was made into a movie starring Tommy Lee Jones.  You can be a good Texan wherever you are by picking out a favorite Texas based novel or short story and being able to quote a few lines from it.

Elmer passed away in August 2009 and it was a great loss for Texas and his genre of Western literature in general.  He was a friend of Real Texas and his loss will be mourned for quite a while.

There are other Western writers, but none compare to Elmer Kelton.  He has received more awards, more accolades from his fellow writers than any other western genre writer. He grew up out near Crane in the sand hills and although most of his books were western fiction, he says he “was never much of a cowboy” like his dad or his brother.  I would run into Elmer in San Angelo on occasion, and we would generally talk about my father or Uncle Ollie, a long time County Agent in Glasscock County.  He could talk with hundreds of friends and acquaintances in the same familiar way.

All that being said, my equally favorite Texas writer is of course, Larry McMurtry.  McMurtry has a gift.  His gift is to be able to tell the story of Texas in a way that relates to nearly every Texan; male, female, city, country, or somewhere in between. I have a collection of every book he was written and they are mostly in hardback.  I’m in the process of replacing those paperbacks I have with hardback copies.

If you read nothing else of McMurtry, read his series starting with The Last Picture Show:

• The Last Picture show
• Texasville
• Duane’s Depressed
• When the Light Goes and,
  
• Rhino Ranch where Duane finally keels over and gives it all up.

Most of us know people whom his Texas characters could be based on.  I’ve drank coffee with them down at the Dairy Queen and beer with them on dove hunts.  He’s good.  He has written plenty of other books you know including the all-time classic and my favorite movie of all time, Lonesome Dove and its prequel, Comanche Moon and the sequel in Streets of Laredo.  He just has a gift and he keeps on giving that gift to Texas and the world.  You might also enjoy his set of essays, In A Narrow Grave. McMurtry tried his best to dispel the Texas myth and mystique.  All he did was make being Texan more desirable.

I believe McMurtry is currently writing a screenplay based on the book Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne.  The movie will be based on the Comanche tribe and their young chief, Quanah Parker.  The release date of the movie has not been announced, but if McMurtry and his friend Diana Ossana are involved, it will be a blockbuster and I’ll try to be at the head of the line to see the movie.  The book was fantastic and Gwynne and his family of course, live in Austin, Texas.

McMurtry even wrote a book about his screenwriting gigs with several major studios.  That book is called Film Flam.  Very readable account of his screenwriting jobs.

There’s more.  As a college age young man I also enjoyed North Toward Home, by Willie Morris and The Gay Place, a political novel by Billy Brammer.  Morris is a native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, but he’s one of those who got to Texas as soon as he could.  He attended the University of Texas and it was in Texas he became the writer he was to become.  He was editor of the Daily Texan, the newspaper published by the University of Texas journalism department and later he edited The Texas Observer, liberal muckraking publication.  He was a talented writer and became the youngest editor of Harper’s Magazine of New York.  It was there he made his fame and he hobnobbed and drank and caroused with the literary elite.  My Dog Skip is another favorite of mine by Willie Morris and you can also enjoy the movie of the same name.

Some say Billy Brammer’s The Gay Place is one of the very best political novels about the inner workings of Texas politics and the Texas Legislature.  Brammer served on the staff of LBJ, so he should have had some insights into the workings of Texas politics.  The Gay Place, which is composed of three related novellas: The Flea Circus, Room Enough to Caper, and Country Pleasures was one of the first Texas political books I read.

Add to those lists:  Katherine Anne Porter, Ship of Fools; John Graves, Goodbye to a River about his trip down the Brazos with his dog and Hardscrabble; Stephen Harrigan, the all-purpose Texas historian and author of The Gates of the Alamo; Terry Southern is known for his screenplay of Dr. Strangelove (How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Bomb).  His All-Texan Major King Kong played by Slim Pickens in the scene riding a bomb down to the ground is still etched in my mind.

Larry L. King is another Texas writer I greatly admired.  The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is perhaps his best known, but he had lots of other short stories and magazine articles he is well known for

Cormac McCarthy is most recently known for his book and movie “No Country for Old Men.” And of course the movie adaptation of the book starred San Saba native Tommy Lee Jones.  McCarthy is another great Texas writer.  Before that, he was best known for Blood Meridian.  His novels are known for blood and guts.

True Texan romance novelist Sandra Brown has probably sold more books than any other author from Texas.  She has written over 70 novels and over 50 of them have been New York Times best sellers.

Bud Shrake was a sportswriter, then a big time sportswriter turned Texas novelist.  Easy to read and very good stories.  He wrote Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book, a book about golf and life as well as an autobiography of Willie.  He was also “First Friend” of former Governor Ann Richards.  Hell of a good guy too.  Dan Jenkins is another former sportswriter turned novelist.  He wrote Semi-Tough among others.

Mike Cox has written many novels about The Texas Rangers as well as Texas based books.

Gary Cartwright, Peter Gent……the list goes on and on.

Texas historian Lon Tinkle, J. Evetts Haley, and don’t forget Fred Gipson, author of Old Yeller.

Christian author Max Lucado is a Texas author born in San Angelo and he grew up in the oilfields of West Texas.

Here is a list of some I have already discussed and some you may never have heard of, but they all tell a good story.  If you come from a very dysfunctional family, pick up Mary Karr’s  book The Liar’s Club.  If you enjoy reading about sports, try Dan Jenkins or Bud Shrake.  If you want to learn more about Texas Rangers of old Texas, Mike cox is a friend of mine and he’s the best there is on the subject.   Go to Amazon or your favorite bookstore and find a Texas author and their books……Here’s a small list:  Sarah Bird, Robert Caro, Liz Carpenter, Mike Cox, Horton Foote, Kinky Friedman, John Graves, A. C. Greene, Stephen Harrigan, Roland Hinojosa, Skip Hollandsworth, Molly Ivins, Dan Jenkins, , Mary Karr, Elmer Kelton, Larry L. King, Jim Lehrer, Prudence Mackintosh, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, Bill D. Moyers, Joe Nick Patoski, Dick J. Reavis, Jan Reid, Marilyn Schwartz, Edwin Shrake, Jr., Mimi Swarz, Leslie Ullman, Bryan Woolley.  I’m positive I’ve left out some very imp[important Texas authors.  Please add them in a reply to this post….yes, I really am interested.

I have also read everything J. Frank Dobie has ever written.  I took on that challenge as a personal goal.  Dobie was among the first to add to the Texas mystique and he was force in creating the Texas mystique that McMurtry tried so hard to overcome. Add in Roy Bedicheck   and Walter Prescott Webb and you have a foundation for Texas writers who made Texas famous.  Mr. Webb was a noted Texas historian and Bedicheck wrote Adventures of a Texas Naturalist.

And when I get this series of essays done on How To Be Texan, Wherever You Are, you can buy that also.  It is a never ending list so I’ll probably never run out of ways to be Texan.  I’ll just be adding Volumes II, III, IV and so on.

You have plenty of Texas writers and actors and novels of whom you can be very proud and now is a good time to start reading up on them to get you into the mood so you can be Texan Wherever You Are and have you own favorite Texas novel or writer or complete Texas based library.

Are there some writers I have failed to mention?  Of course!  Not on purpose by any means.  I just didn’t put them here because I didn’t think of them in the hour or so it took to write this.

I have an acquaintance I see at my favorite dance hall/honky-tonk who has published several books on the Kindle.  One as I recall concerns Al Capone and his gold.

Then there is a series of short stories written by a new friend in Dallas named Mike Engleman who is as talented as any author I’ve read.  He calls it his “Open Door” series and you can buy it at Amazon for just 99 cents.  The first one is  called “A Melody“, and it is even free at certain times of the month.  Give the link a click.  You’ll be glad you did and that is one ‘open door’ you’ll be glad you stepped through.

What and who are your favorite Texas based books and authors?

I’m David Werst out in Real Texas

All Texas, all the time!

Tagged as: david werst, texas books, Texas writers