{"id":1166,"date":"2018-12-31T16:00:32","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1166"},"modified":"2018-12-31T16:00:32","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T16:00:32","slug":"lone-star-reviewsmichelle-newby-nbcc-92","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=1166","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star ReviewsMichelle Newby, NBCC,"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Lone Star Reviews<\/span>Michelle Newby, NBCC,<\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n

Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/span><\/span>FICTION \/ TEXANA<\/p>\n

Heath Dollar<\/span><\/p>\n

Waylon County: Texas Stories<\/span><\/p>\n

Sleeping Panther Press<\/p>\n

Paperback, 978-0-9980661-4-1 (also available as ebook); $14.99<\/p>\n

Waylon County: Texas Stories is a fresh-voiced, well-composed collection<\/span> of thirty-one vignettes and short stories set in a fictional county in the Texas Hill Country.<\/p>\n

Some of its characters include: a woman who fears Texas won\u2019t let her get married a tenth time; a lowly state bureaucrat whose job is to write official letters of congratulation; a man trying to rekindle an old romance while claiming his pet monkey is a \u201ccomfort\u201d animal; a linguist who wants to help keep alive the last remnants of the German dialect originally spoken by early Texas settlers; a young man sneaking beers and cigars into his dying father\u2019s hospital room and pushing him outside in a wheelchair so they can share some final time alone; and a ranch hand hired by an aging, wealthy landowner to also serve as his personal philosopher.<\/p>\n

Events such as county fairs, bingo games, and visits to beauty shops provide some of the settings. And several Texas cities, including Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Fredericksburg briefly shimmer as backdrops in some of the stories and vignettes. But Waylon County is home for the characters. And their actions and interactions create compelling, often funny, and sometimes darkish portraits of life in contemporary small-town Texas.\u00a0\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

>> archive<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

\u00a0New biography tells Kinky Friedman\u2019s story<\/h1>\n

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Mary Lou Sullivan tells the story of one of Texas\u2019s most colorful characters<\/span> in Everything\u2019s Bigger in Texas: <\/span>The Life & Times of Kinky Friedman<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Backbeat Books, $29.99 hardcover).<\/p>\n

Kinky wrote the foreword to his own biography. Of course he did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be honest with you,\u201d he begins the foreword, \u201cI haven\u2019t read this book.\u201d But he adds, \u201cI hear great things about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cA true Renaissance man,\u201d she writes, \u201cKinky is a man of many talents. He\u2019s 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\u2019s been a columnist, politician, entrepreneur, and animal activist who cofounded a no-kill animal shelter in Texas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kinky fans will find plenty of good stories in Sullivan\u2019s account, but she also explores the serious side of his persona. \u201cKinky\u2019s legacy,\u201d Sullivan concludes, \u201cis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fried squirrel:<\/span> In her Texas White Trash Cookbook: What Memaw Should Have Taught Y\u2019all<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Great Texas Line, $5.95 paperback), former pro \u201crasslin\u2019\u201d columnist Betty Ann Stout<\/span> offers recipes for such delectable dishes as Oven Fried Squirrel, the \u2019Ol Carnation Burger Trick, Sick-Day Soup, Barbecued Vi-Enny Sausages, and Piglets in Blankets for Lazy Men.<\/p>\n

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Political dynasty<\/span>: The Dukes of Duval County<\/span><\/a><\/span> by Anthony Carrozza<\/span> (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.<\/p>\n

Dissident dispatches:<\/span> E.R. Bills<\/span> offers his take on Texas politics and values in Texas Dissident: Dispatches from a Diminished State, 2006\u20132016<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Wild Horse Media, $17.95 paperback), a collection of newspaper columns and articles that challenge the state\u2019s politically conservative status quo.<\/p>\n

Murder mystery: <\/span>Former journalist and longtime Texan Jim Nesbitt<\/span> sets his murder mystery, The Right Wrong Number<\/span><\/a><\/span> (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<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole\u2019s<\/span> latest book is West Texas Stories<\/span><\/a><\/span>Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Check out his previous Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Lit<\/a><\/span>erary Life<\/span><\/h1>\n

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Simon Pulse<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-4814-6351-9, (also available as an e-book), 304 pgs., $17.99<\/p>\n

March 14, 2017<\/p>\n

Sixteen-year-old Leah Roberts lives in a broken family at the edge of the East Texas piney woods.<\/span> Ten years ago, her family has been shattered in the aftermath of the death, in those woods, of her brother Sam. Leah\u2019s father is Pastor Roberts, and he has a lot of rules (no lip gloss, no bikinis); one of those rules is never, ever go into the woods. But the forest is the only place Leah can let down her emotional walls, be herself. \u201cThis forest is my religion, the towering cathedral of trees my church, and I\u2019m reborn every time I leave,\u201d Leah tells us.<\/p>\n

The forest is Leah\u2019s comfort, both freedom and sanctuary, and holds her biggest secret. \u201cHeavy steps echo through the trees, the surefooted sound of creatures that have nothing to fear in this world,\u201d Leah says. Would that that were true. \u201cI\u2019ve watched something that technically doesn\u2019t exist come and go in the forest behind our home for years.\u201d Leah has never told anyone because she\u2019s pretty sure they\u2019d stop listening at \u201cBigfoot.\u201d But the morning she first sees the human boy with the Sasquatch, she knows she has a difficult decision to make. \u201cThe walls are falling down around me, pushing me closer to the human embodiment of everything I love about the forest. Leah is gone,\u201d she thinks, \u201cand in her place is a girl walking with a boy who feels like home, the way it was before everything fell apart.\u201d\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Counterpoint<\/p>\n

Hardcover, 978-1-6190-2996-5, (also available as an e-book), 272 pgs., $26.00<\/p>\n

November 14, 2017<\/p>\n

My dad, former deputy sheriff of Mitchell County, Texas, <\/span>always said everything that happens in the big city happens in small towns, just not as often. The small towns in Bee County, Texas, were presided over by Sheriff Vail Ennis from 1945 until 1952. Ennis was a legend in his time, and his most dramatic exploit is also the beginning of this true story. Shot five times by an ex-con at a Magnolia station in Pettus, a wide spot in the road, on a cold November night in 1947, Ennis managed to empty his gun, reload, and kill both attackers before the ambulance arrived to speed him to a hospital.<\/p>\n

The Last Sheriff in Texas: A True Tale of Violence and the Vote<\/span> by Beeville native son James P. McCollom<\/span> is told through the actions of two men, Sheriff Ennis and Beeville\u2019s hometown-boy-made-good Johnny Barnhart. In the beginning it\u2019s not clear what Barnhart\u2019s part in the drama will be; we meet him as a yell leader and fraternity boy, then a law student, at the University of Texas at Austin. Barnhart returns to Beeville with his juris doctor,<\/span> hangs out a shingle, and is promptly elected to the Texas lege, where his principles and idealism get him branded a subversive and smeared as a Commie during McCarthy\u2019s Red Scare.\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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LONE STAR LISTENS interviews\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n

Author interviews by Kay Ellington<\/span><\/h1>\n

12.17.2017\u00a0 Lubbock adman and<\/a><\/span> first-time book author Phil Price reflects on a lifetime of marketing and messaging<\/h1>\n

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\u201cIt is easier to write about yourself than getting\u00a0 the facts correct about another person and compiled in a nonfiction book,\u201d<\/span> Lubbock adman <\/span>Phil Price<\/span> discovered five years ago when he undertook to tell the story of a fellow businessman and community leader who just happened to be a black man in majority-white West Texas.<\/span><\/p>\n

On May 11, 1970, one of Texas\u2019s most devastating tornadoes in history hit Lubbock, essentially wiping out the city\u2019s bustling downtown. Price, discharged from the military that same day after finishing his tour of duty in Vietnam, had come home to a country that was less than supportive of the war. Price\u2019s challenges were compounded by the tornado. He had expected to return stateside to a position as vice-president of a Lubbock publishing company\u2014a career that never occurred thanks to the tornado\u2019s destruction.<\/p>\n

Instead, Price went into the ad business. For more than four decades he served as CEO of the company he founded and served the Lubbock community in a variety of civic and volunteer capacities.<\/p>\n

Along the way, he became friends with T. J. Patterson<\/span> the first African-American elected to Lubbock\u2019s city council, who was an activist and community organizer. The biography of Patterson, Equal Opportunity Hero,<\/span> is Price\u2019s first published book. Get to know these two trailblazers in this week\u2019s Lone Star Listens.<\/p>\n

LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>Where did you grow up, Phil, and what influence did your upbringing play in your future writing life?<\/span><\/p>\n

PHIL PRICE: <\/span>Hollis, Oklahoma, was my first adventure in the arts. I produced and directed a play for my school. Plagiarism. Hansel and Gretel. The audience stood and applauded. I was hooked.\u00a0\u00a0 >>READ MORE<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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Above, from left, at Phil Price\u2019s book launch at Lubbock\u2019s Roots Arts Council Dec. 16:<\/span> \u201cEqual Opportunity Hero” T. J. Patterson;<\/span> biographer Price; Price\u2019s sister, bestselling author Jodi Thomas<\/span> of Canyon; and Patterson\u2019s daughter Sheila Patterson Harris,<\/span> now serving as a second-generation member of Lubbock\u2019s city council. (Photo by John Brock, Texas Tech University Press)<\/p>\n

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Texas’s only statewide, weekly calendar of book events
<\/span>Bookish Texas<\/span> event highlights\u00a0 12.17.2017 <\/span>>><\/span><\/a><\/span> GO this week\u00a0\u00a0 <\/span>Michelle Newby, Contributing Editor<\/span><\/h1>\n

SPECIAL EVENTS THIS WEEK<\/span><\/p>\n