12.17.2017   New biography tells Kinky Friedman’s story

Mary Lou Sullivan tells the story of one of Texas’s most colorful characters in Everything’s Bigger in Texas: The Life & Times of Kinky Friedman (Backbeat Books, $29.99 hardcover).

Kinky wrote the foreword to his own biography. Of course he did.

“I’ll be honest with you,” he begins the foreword, “I haven’t read this book.” But he adds, “I hear great things about it.”

Probably by now he has actually read it. Certainly, he spent many hours being interviewed by author Sullivan, who also spoke with dozens of his friends, family and musical colleagues in putting together her 300-page narrative.

“A true Renaissance man,” she writes, “Kinky is a man of many talents. He’s been a chess prodigy, camp counselor, swimming instructor, civil rights activist, Peace Corps volunteer, musician, songwriter, entertainer, satirist, and author of thirty books and countless articles. He’s been a columnist, politician, entrepreneur, and animal activist who cofounded a no-kill animal shelter in Texas.”

Kinky fans will find plenty of good stories in Sullivan’s account, but she also explores the serious side of his persona. “Kinky’s legacy,” Sullivan concludes, “is the ability to inspire, to make people laugh, to make them think, to skewer sacred cows and hypocrisy, to continue to move forward, and to be his own man.”

Fried squirrel: In her Texas White Trash Cookbook: What Memaw Should Have Taught Y’all (Great Texas Line, $5.95 paperback), former pro “rasslin’” columnist Betty Ann Stout offers recipes for such delectable dishes as Oven Fried Squirrel, the ’Ol Carnation Burger Trick, Sick-Day Soup, Barbecued Vi-Enny Sausages, and Piglets in Blankets for Lazy Men.

Political dynasty: The Dukes of Duval County by Anthony Carrozza (University of Oklahoma Press, $32.95 hardcover) takes an in-depth look at the notorious Archie/George Parr family and its pervasive political influence in South Texas, including the controversial Ballot Box 13 in 1948 that gave Lyndon B. Johnson an eighty-seven-vote victory statewide in his race for the U.S. Senate.

Dissident dispatches: E.R. Bills offers his take on Texas politics and values in Texas Dissident: Dispatches from a Diminished State, 2006–2016 (Wild Horse Media, $17.95 paperback), a collection of newspaper columns and articles that challenge the state’s politically conservative status quo.

Murder mystery: Former journalist and longtime Texan Jim Nesbitt sets his murder mystery, The Right Wrong Number (Spotted Mule Press, $14.99 paperback), in Houston, Dallas and the Big Bend. Featured character is Dallas private eye Ed Earl Burch. Read more at freshfiction.com.

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Glenn Dromgoole’s latest book is West Texas StoriesContact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.