Contributing Editor

1.21.2018

BIOGRAPHY

Mary Lou Sullivan

Everything’s Bigger in Texas: The Life and Times of Kinky Friedman

Backbeat Books

Hardcover, 978-1495058967, 344 pages, $29.99 (also available as ebook); October 2017

Reviewed by Si Dunn

Chicago native Richard “Kinky” Friedman has lived a bigger life in Texas than most other Lone Star State inhabitants would dare. Indeed, Kinky’s name is now recognized across the nation and in many other parts of the the world. But what he is remembered for, besides being famous, can be harder to pin down.

He is perhaps best known as a Jewish country-western singer and songwriter who became a mystery novelist, a Texas Monthly columnist, a serious candidate for Texas governor, and a national TV political commentator, among other things. He also is an animal rights activist and friends with many musicians and pop-culture celebrities. And, now in his seventies, he again has been hitting the road to perform his songs — drawing inspiration from two other still-traveling troubadours: Willie Nelson, now in his eighties, and Bob Dylan, now in his mid-seventies.

“Kinky’s legacy 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,” Mary Lou Sullivan writes.  >>READ MORE

Lone Star Lit launches Indiegogo campaign ’18: Help us showcase more books, more authors, more ways in 2018!

Lone Star Literary Life covers the Texas literary scene like no one else, week in and week out. Since 2015, we’ve given Texas authors, booksellers, libraries, publishers, and readers a trusted platform of their own. With shrinking coverage devoted to books in mainstream media — and most of that focused on the same handful of national bestsellers — where were Texas authors to get noticed, and where were Texas readers to discover the books they crave? We’ve stepped up to make sure the Lone Star State doesn’t lose touch with its rich literary heritage, and that Texas books get their due.

At the start of our second year, notable Texas literary figures gave us a boost by taking part in a testimonial video, produced by Doug Baum of Waco. We think our case holds up remarkably well — and we’ve featured it in our 2018 campaign as well. Check out out, below.

We hope you’ll be able to spare a tiny bit of your budget to help take our coverage to the next level in 2018. We’ve got some great new books coming up as perks, and some attractive discounts on book promotional packages as well.

Visit the campaign site at https://igg.me/at/LoneStarLiterary

Thanks in advance, y’all!

Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archive

 Novel’s character grapples with early dementia

Houston author Evan Moore has penned a sensitive, literate novel dealing with early onset dementia.

Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang (Moonshine Cove Publishing, $13.99 paperback) tells the story of a 60-year-old weekly newspaper publisher who lives with his college-age son on the family’s Texas ranch. Ethan Breen realizes that he has symptoms of early dementia, which had struck both his father and grandfather, and he is considering killing himself as his father did. But he wonders: Can he actually go through with it when the time comes?

Ethan asks his son Kevin to accompany him on a road trip so he can visit some old friends and perhaps come to grips with something that has haunted him since high school. Along the way he tells Kevin stories about his life — some of them humorous, some poignant — that the young man had never heard.

A personal note: My father died from Alzheimer’s in 2000. Soon after he was diagnosed we went on a road trip together where he told me stories I had never heard before. So I found Evan Moore’s novel, which I read in two days, to be compelling and heartfelt.

Campus mystery: Judy Alter, who was director of TCU Press for twenty years and is a prolific author herself, has written a second murder mystery set on a mythical Texas university campus.

Pigface and the Perfect Dog (Alter Ego Publishing, $12.99 paperback) is the second in her new Oak Grove Mysteries series, following The Perfect Coed. Alter gets to the action right away as protagonist Susan Hogan confronts a rifle-packing customer in a grocery store, and by the third page a college student’s body has been found in a nearby pasture. The book drew a rave from fellow Texas mystery writer Susan Wittig Albert: “Judy Alter’s Perfect mysteries are just that — perfectly readable, suspenseful, and engaging. This one will keep you guessing to the very end.”

Private eye thriller: ESPN football analyst and author Paul Finebaum offers this endorsement of Jim Nesbitt’s private eye novel, The Right Wrong Number (Spotted Mule Press, $12.99 paperback): “Jim Nesbitt’s latest hard-boiled Texas thriller is another masterpiece. ‘The Right Wrong Number’ has everything to keep the reader turning the page — vivid characters, stark Texas landscape, non-stop action and a classic American anti-hero in Ed Earl Burch, Nesbitt’s battered but dogged Dallas PI. Buckle up and brace yourself for another wild ride.”

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Glenn Dromgoole has been writing his Texas Reads column since 2002, focusing on Texas books and authors. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

>> Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life

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