Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,

Contributing Editor

Texas ReadsGlenn Dromgoole

>> archive

Historical novel traces family’s struggles during the Civil War

Longview author Lottie Guttry’s fast-paced historical novel Alligator Creek (Brown Books, $24.99 hardcover) is based on the story of her great-great-grandmother during and after the Civil War.

Set in Florida and Texas, the story focuses on Sarah and Alex Browning and their young family — a boy, a girl, and one on the way — as hostilities between the North and South heat up in early 1862. Able-bodied men like Alex Browning are expected to do their duty and go to war for the “cause.” Sarah is opposed to having her husband leave their Florida farm and their family for a “foolish war” she doesn’t believe is worth the probable cost. But Alex feels compelled and signs up, fully anticipating that the South will win quickly and he will be home in a few months.

Of course, the war drags on for three more years and the toll in human suffering is catastrophic. While Alex fights overwhelming odds to survive, Sarah struggles to keep the farm solvent and the family hopeful in the face of increasing turmoil and hardship. When the war finally ends, the family’s trials and tribulations do not, and eventually the Browning family joins a wagon train headed for Texas.

Guttry attributes the idea for the book to a graduate class she took at Stephen F. Austin University in which the professor assigned students to learn and write about a family legend. The story, told from Sarah’s and Alex’s points of view, is a real page-turner. I literally picked it up one morning and read the whole 350-page saga in one day, certainly a rarity for me.

Mystery writer: Prolific author Bill Crider of Alvin has a new mystery featuring small-town Texas sheriff Dan Rhodes, one of the more laid-back and likeable peace officers you’ll come across.

Survivors Will Be Shot Again (Minotaur, $25.99 hardcover) is the 23rd title in his Sheriff Rhodes series. As always, Crider keeps the reader entertained with his collection of local characters, and the various major and minor crimes the sheriff must investigate. Learn more about Crider and his wide range of interests on his website, billcrider.com.

Practical advice for musicians: Syndicated radio host D. Grant Smith of Clyde has written a practical guide for independent musicians — The DIY Musician’s Radio Handbook: How to Growth Hack Your Fan Base & Build Stronger Networks Using Indie Radio Airplay (Clear Fork Publishing, $17.50 paperback, $2.99 e-book). Chapters cover such topics as “Maximizing the Benefits of Radio,” “Getting Your Music Radio Ready,” and “The Process of Getting Radio Airplay.”

Glenn Dromgoole is co-author of 101 Essential Texas Books. Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.

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

Simon & Schuster

Hardcover, 978-1-501-10720-7 (also available as an ebook, an audio book, and on Audible), 288 pgs., $27.99; August 30, 2016

It’s 1952 on Galveston Beach and seventeen-year-old Aaron Holland Broussard hits a drive-in for a burger after a day in the salt. Feeling lucky after swimming through a school of jellyfish without being stung, Aaron intervenes in an argument between the beautiful, brilliant Valerie Epstein and her mob-connected boyfriend Grady Harrelson (who “always struck a pose that seemed to capture our times—petulant, self-indulgent, glamourous in a casual way, and dangerous, with no self-knowledge”).

Before it’s all over, this innocent intervention exposes a vast right-wing conspiracy of garden-variety hoodlums, the Galveston branch of Murder, Incorporated, stone-cold hitters straight from Sicily, corrupt cops, former spooks, and Ayn Rand–reading would-be brownshirts of River Oaks. >>READ MORE

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Hardcover, 978-0-544-92095-8 (also available as an ebook, an audio book, and on Audible), 288 pgs., $23.00; July 26, 2016

Anna, Tom, and Jane are sitting down to dinner one night when the doorbell rings. Anna answers the door. “The first thing I see is her pale hair,” thinks Anna, “then her face … there’s something familiar about her.” Julie Whitaker has been gone for eight years, kidnapped from her bedroom at thirteen, “and just like that, the worst unhappens. Julie is home.” As the family tries to move forward, treading lightly, fault lines are exposed. When Anna gets a phone call from a private detective, he adds fuel to her dawning suspicions, and she begins to question this Julie’s identity. Is she or isn’t she? >>READ MORE

LONE STAR LISTENS interviews >> archive

Kay Ellington, Editor and Publisher

8.28.2016 “Republic of Football” author Chad S. Conine: a Red Raider living amongst the dancing Bears

From The Republic of Football: Left, Brownwood coach Gordon Wood (right) and assistant Kenneth West (left) discuss strategy with quarterback Marvin Rathke (15) during the 1981 playoffs. Wood retired following the 1985 season, having won a Texas-record 396 games and nine state championships. Texas Sports Hall of Fame photo. Right: Temple coach Bob McQueen raises his arms in victory. McQueen led the Wildcats to two state championships as they claimed the 4A crown in 1979 and the 5A Division II title in 1992. Texas Sports Hall of Fame photo.

In every corner of the Lone Star State, high school football legends are told from generation to generation, sometimes these stories are only memorialized in an oral tradition. Fortunately, a new book by sports journalist Chad S. Conine has now recorded for history some of the biggest Texas high school football games and the role their coaches and players had in them. Chad spoke with us this week about the art of sportwriting and his The Republic of Football: Legends of the Texas High School Game (University of Texas Press, 2016).

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Chad, where did you grow up and how did that inform your writing later in life?

CHAD S. CONINE: I grew up in Waco. My family moved to Waco from Lubbock when I was three years old. All of my grandparents and a lot of my extended family still lived in Lubbock, so we made the six-hour drive a lot (the speed limit was only fifty-five then). I was always really close with my grandparents, so being on the road to see them was exciting for me. Maybe that’s why I spend so much time driving now. It always seems like it’s going to be worth it. Driving to towns all over Texas has become a big part of my career as a sportswriter and it was a huge part of The Republic of Football. >>READ MORE

Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events

Bookish Texas event highlights 8.28.2016
>> GO this week Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor

AUSTIN Mon., Aug. 29 Bob Bullock Museum, “Land and Legacy: Preserving Natural Texas” panel discussion with historian Neel Baumgardner, Douglas Brinkley and Laura Huffman, 7PMDALLAS Tues., Aug. 30 Old Parkland – Pecan Room, Talmage Boston presents Cross-Examining History: A Lawyer Gets Answers From the Experts About Our Presidents, 6:30PMAlso signing in FORT WORTH and McKINNEY, Thurs., Sept. 1AUSTIN Wed., Aug. 31 Austin Public Library – Terrazas, Aural Literature: The Re-Integration Project: a writing and art collaboration for Texas Veterans, 7PMAUSTIN Sat., Sept. 3 St. Edward’s University, Writers’ League of Texas Workshop: “Twisting Facts into Stories: Reality in Fiction and Nonfiction” with Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, 10AMCOLLEGE STATION Sat., Sept. 3, MSC Bookstore, Jayme Blaschke signs Inside the Chicken Ranch, 12PMMINERAL WELLS Sun., Sept. 4, Lake Mineral Wells State Park, Join David Owens, park interpreter and cowboy poet, for Cross Timbers cowboy poetry and stories, 8PM

News Briefs 8.28.16

Texas Book Festival to host Nick Offerman, Hannah Hart, and T.C. Boyle as part of 2016 festival weekend

Pre-order book tickets for popular author sessions available now

AUSTIN – The Texas Book Festival is excited to host Nick Offerman, Hannah Hart, and T.C. Boyle in support of their latest releases as part of the 2016 Texas Book Festival lineup. Offerman, Hunt, and Boyle will discuss and sign their new books during the Festival Weekend with a limited number of pre-order book tickets available now via the Texas Book Festival website. Tickets include one copy of the author’s book and a priority seat at his or her Festival session. >>READ MORE

Second annual Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop slated for Midland Sept. 16–18

The Permian Basin Writers’ Workshop returns to Midland this fall, with a diverse lineup of presenters, speakers, agents, editors, and authors. The event kicks off Friday evening, Sept. 16, 7:30–8:30 p.m. at Midland’s historic Yucca Theatre and continues throughout Saturday and Sunday on the campus of Midland College.

Author and journalist ReShonda Tate Billingsley will give a keynote presentation Friday evening, “When Words Leave the Page,” as part of a program featuring refreshments and author performances.

Billingsley is the national bestselling author of more than forty books. She writes adult and teen fiction as well as nonfiction. Several of her books have been optioned for movies, including her sophomore novel, Let the Church Say Amen, directed by actress Regina King, and produced by TD Jakes and Queen Latifah. Billingsley made her on-screen movie debut in the film, which aired in August 2015 and was one of BET’s highest rated original programs. TV One recently released the TV version of her book The Secret She Kept on July 10, 2016 and will be airing The Devil is a Lie in fall 2016.>>READ MORE

Kidder to Headline Friends of Dallas Public Library Gala Nov. 10

Tracy Kidder, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author hailed as one of America’s greatest nonfiction narrative writers, will be the featured speaker at the Friends of the Dallas Public Library annual gala on Thursday, November 10.

The dinner will be held in O’Hara Hall, part of the newly renovated seventh floor of the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in downtown Dallas.

Kidder is the author of ten books, including The Soul of a New Machine, an absorbing tale of the development of a new computer, which won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction and the National Book Award. His latest work, A Truck Full of Money, scheduled for release September 20, is being praised by Kirkus Reviews as “more engrossing work from a gifted practitioner of narrative nonfiction.” >>READ MORE