{"id":205,"date":"2018-12-31T11:12:06","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T11:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=205"},"modified":"2018-12-31T11:12:06","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T11:12:06","slug":"lone-star-book-reviewsby-michelle-newby-nbcccontributing-editor-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=205","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Book ReviewsBy Michelle Newby, NBCCContributing Editor"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span><\/span>Michelle Newby<\/span> is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Foreword Reviews, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, and blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com. Her reviews appear or are forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, <\/span>and The Collagist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lone Star Book Reviews
of Texas books appear weekly
at LoneStarLiterary.com<\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n
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<\/a><\/span>Texas history<\/p>\n

Sublett, Jesse<\/p>\n

1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capital<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

History Press<\/p>\n

176 pgs., 978-1-62629-840-1, $19.99 paperback<\/p>\n

March 9, 2015<\/p>\n

1960s Austin Gangsters: Organized Crime that Rocked the Capita<\/span><\/a><\/span>is Jesse Sublett\u2019s history of the Overton Gang, \u201cAustin\u2019s locally grown white trash mafia\u201d (part of what is sometimes termed the \u201cDixie Mafia\u201d). Tim Overton and his cohorts did their very best to control the criminal underground in Austin from approximately 1960 until 1968, when the gang went to trial on federal conspiracy charges of running an interstate bank robbery and prostitution ring. The Overton Gang of \u201csafecrackers, pimps, drug dealers and Cadillac-obsessed hoodlums\u201d did not content itself with Texas but went regional with \u201cheavy connections to the Italian counterparts in the Big D, Cowtown, the Little Man in New Orleans, Biloxi, Oklahoma, Florida and Chicago.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is evident that Sublett conducted many interviews and exhaustive research. He is fond of his subject and it shows. The profiles of the individuals involved are interesting and include backstory, exposing the \u201cdysfunctional backgrounds\u201d that undoubtedly contributed to their career choices. For these reasons, it is a particular shame that the book could have done with a more careful edit and copyedit. It is intermittently disjointed and sometimes difficult to follow.<\/p>\n

There is plenty of humor here, sometimes dry, sometimes sardonic. \u201cIt\u2019s an important part of Austin history,\u201d said Nick Kralj, former club owner and longtime Austin backstage historian. \u201cYou always had a connection with the outlaws and the lawyers and the politicians\u2026because they all like the same things.\u201d The author describes Corpus Christi as \u201cthe city on the Texas Gulf Coast named after the Son of God\u2014ironically so, as in pre-European settlement times the area was inhabited by the Karankawa Indians, who were known to eat people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sublett has a colloquial style that borders on the lyrical, which makes sense when you learn that his Austin band, the Skunks, was inducted into the Hall of Fame. For example: \u201cEven before the \u201cSummer of Love\u201d in 1967, you only had to drive down the Drag to see Austin\u2019s old, square corners melting into new, cooler shapes.\u201d And: \u201cIn the fall of \u201963, as Sean Connery showed Americans how slick double-zero agents committed government-sanctioned sabotage and murder, Dr. Timothy Leary was spreading the gospel of LSD, and Austin thug culture was still in an old school groove.\u201d<\/p>\n

Austin Gangsters<\/span> is an engaging cultural history of Austin\u2019s growing pains and class distinctions as it transformed from a \u201csleepy state capital and college town to the creative class\/music mecca that we know today.\u201d While engaging, it is cluttered with minutiae: dates, street addresses, lists of items and amounts stolen, and details unnecessary to telling the story well. You may feel as if you need an organizational chart. There is even some rather startling conjecture involving JFK assassination theories. Austin Gangsters<\/span> belongs firmly in the Truth is Stranger than Fiction category.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michelle Newby is contributing editor at Lone Star Literary Life, reviewer for Foreword Reviews, freelance writer, member of the National Book Critics Circle, and blogger at www.TexasBookLover.com. Her reviews appear or are forthcoming in Pleiades Magazine, Rain Taxi, World Literature Today, South85 Journal, The Review Review, Concho River Review, Monkeybicycle, Mosaic Literary Magazine, Atticus Review, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}