Contributing Editor

POETRY

Carmen Tafolla, edited by Bryce Milligan

New and Selected Poems

Hardcover, 978-0-87565-689-2, 96 pp.,  $19.95

Texas A&M University Press

TCU Texas Poets Laureate Series

June 15, 2018

Reviewed by Natalia Treviño

The first burst of delicacies in Carmen Tafolla’s New and Selected Poems. A tribute to her accomplishments, roots, and activism by Bryce Milligan. The sweets that waterfall out? Eclectic, sensuous, and unabashed poetics of a fierce Chicana.

     As I read this collection, I was reminded how fortunate I am to live in the city whose praises she frequently sings and whose sorrows and injustices she laments. This is one of the bright piñatas in this book for San Antonio readers, but the big prize goes to a much wider population. Needed in a time filled with such negative rhetoric about immigrants and Mexicans, this book feeds its readers pride in their cultura, in its Indigenous wisdom from the voice of a nurturer-mother Earth: “I have squeezed cilantro into the breast milk/ made sure you were nurtured with the taste / of green life.”

      “Sassy as salsa,” this books teaches that we can “sashay” as we “sizzle on the streets,” offering an alternative to the narrative of despair and inferiority that is often sold to the world about Indigenous peoples, Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans. >>READ MORE

SCIENCE AND HISTORY

Robert Kurson

Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon

Random House

Hardcover, 978-0812988703, 384 pages, $28.00; April 3, 2018

Reviewed by Chris Manno

If you could pick only one book to read that would place you at the epicenter of the daring Apollo moon landing program, the Cold War and the legendary Space Race, this would be it.

       In Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man’s First Journey to the Moon, Kurson has achieved a fascinating and readable blend of both the history and context that comprised the world stage upon which man’s greatest journey played out in the latter years of the 1960s.  >>READ MORE

FICTION

Patricia Hunt Holmes

Searching for Pilar

River Grove Books

Paperback, 978-1-63299-153-9 (also available as ebook); 320 pages, $16.95; April 10, 2018

In stark, disturbing detail, Searching for Pilar confronts the grim crime of sex trafficking in Mexico and the United States and shows how difficult it can be for law-enforcement authorities to take actions to stop it.

     This first novel by Houston writer Patricia Hunt Holmes is “inspired by real events and informed by experts.” It takes the reader into the darkest heart of an inhumane underworld business.  >>READ MORE

Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archive

Latest Hank the Cowdog novel inspired by 2017 wildfire

The 71st novel in the popular Hank the Cowdog series is The Case of the Monster Fire (Maverick Books, $5.99 paperback).

The story grew out of the March 2017 wildfire that burned more than a million acres in the Texas Panhandle, including the working ranch of John R. Erickson, author of the Hank series.

In The Case of the Monster Fire, Hank and ranch hand Slim Chance come face to face with a wildfire unlike anything they’ve seen before. Slim has just invested in his own herd of cattle; will he be able to save them?

At the end of the story, John and Kris Erickson give a brief report on “the real fire” that destroyed their home and ranch and Erickson’s workshop. In the aftermath of the fire, they said they received boxes of encouraging letters from friends they had never met.

“We’re already embarking on the road to rebuilding,” they tell readers. “Thank you, Hank readers and friends, for your letters, prayers, and help. You have been an incredible blessing to us!” Erickson also has teamed up with the National Ranching Heritage Center at Texas Tech to produce a three-book non-fiction series for young readers about real life on a ranch.

The first book, published in the fall of 2016, focused on Ranching and Livestock, while the second, published last fall, dealt with Cowboys and Horses. The third book, Ranch Wildlife, is scheduled for this fall.

The books are written in the voice of Hank the Cowdog himself, who explains ranch life in easy-to-understand language. Although the series is intended for children, adults who have never lived on a ranch can learn something from the books as well.

Perryton artist Gerald L. Holmes, who has illustrated all the Hank stories, also provided the artwork for the non-fiction Ranch Life series.

San Antonio writers: When Carlton Stowers and I put together our selection of 101 Essential Texas Books in 2014, one of our choices was the “Literary Cities” series from TCU Press. At the time it consisted of five volumes, Literary Fort Worth being the first, followed by Literary Austin then Dallas, El Paso and Houston.

What was missing was Literary San Antonio. Well, no longer. TCU Press has published the San Antonio volume this spring (a handsome $34.95 hardcover), and it’s well worth the wait.

Edited by Bryce Milligan, Literary San Antonio includes a wide range of writers and their stories, essays or poems, grouped under five section headings — historical writing, journalism and political essays, poetry and prose poems, drama, and fiction.

A few of the prominent authors represented: Maury Maverick Sr., Jan Jarboe Russell, Carmen Tafolla, Laurie Ann Guerrero, Naomi Shihab Nye, O. Henry, Stephen Harrigan, Nan Cuba, Rick Riordan, Sandra Cisneros.

Milligan introduces the collection with an essay on “Three Centuries of Writing in and of San Antonio,” summarizing San Antonio’s rich literary tradition.

Glenn Dromgoole writes about 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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2018 TEXAS BOOKISH DESTINATIONS

Can you name this literary place in the Lone Star State?

Okay, one last chance at the prize, before National Poetry Month comes to an end April 30!

Admit it: bookfans love traveling almost as much as they love reading itself. Beginning March 4, 2018, Lone Star Literary Life will roll out #10 through #6 in our annual list of Top Texas Bookish Destinations, for readers who want to visit the settings of their favorite books, the birthplaces and haunts of favorite authors, and hot spots for book buying, readings, and other literary activity.

     But throughout Texas’s 268,597 square miles, there are also lots of out-of-the-way points of interest that we don’t always have space to cover in our Top Ten pages.

     Watch this space each week for a new bookish place that you’ll want to add to your own travel list. Be the first to email us with the correct identification, and win a prize!

     This week, we continue with a bookish place that’s located in 2017’s #2 Top Bookish Destination. There’s plenty of poetry in this literary-rich city, but there’s a Poet Tree, too. Can you name the city? And extra credit for telling our readers the neighborhood or street where they can find it, too.

Email us at info@LoneStarLiterary.com with the specific right answer, and we’ll send you a free copy of Literary Texas.

LAST MONTH’S PHOTO (below) was correctly identified as the Capitol Gift Shop, inside the state capitol building in Austin. Congratulations — your prize is on the way!