{"id":408,"date":"2018-12-31T12:10:47","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T12:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=408"},"modified":"2018-12-31T12:10:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T12:10:47","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=408","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Dromgoole’s Texas Reads column appears weekly at LoneStarLiterary.com"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/span><\/span>Texas Reads<\/span>>> archive<\/span><\/a><\/span>Glenn Dromgoole<\/span><\/h1>\n

1.17.16\u00a0\u00a0 Lansdale wild west novel gets off to a fast start<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span>My favorite journalism professor used to say<\/span> that if you had an hour to write a story, spend the first fifty minutes on the lead, or opening paragraph. He was exaggerating, of course, but his point was that if you don\u2019t hook the reader in the first paragraph, it doesn\u2019t much matter what else you write.<\/p>\n

Nacogdoches novelist Joe R. Lansdale<\/span> must subscribe to that theory as well. In his novels, he has a knack for writing an opening paragraph that grabs the reader and pulls him or her into the book with almost magnetic force.<\/p>\n

Here is how Lansdale, writer-in-residence at Stephen F. Austin University and author of more than three dozen novels, begins his latest, Paradise Sky<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Mulholland Books, $26 hardcover):<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, in the living of my life, I\u2019ve killed deadly men and dangerous animals and made love to four Chinese women, all of them on the same night and in the same wagon bed, and one of them with a wooden leg, which made things a mite difficult from time to time. I even ate some of a dead fellow once when I was crossing the plains, though I want to rush right in here and make it clear I didn\u2019t know him all that well, and we damned sure wasn\u2019t kinfolks, and it all come about by a misunderstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

If it isn\u2019t obvious already, let me hasten to note that Lansdale\u2019s novels (at least the five I have read) tend to be raw, violent, profane \u2014 and quite entertaining! If you tend to be offended by strong language, however, Lansdale is probably not for you.<\/p>\n

Paradise Sky<\/span> follows the exploits and adventures of a young black man, Willie Jackson, who was born into slavery and now at age twenty in the mid-1870s finds himself being hunted by a posse of vigilantes because he let his eyes linger on a white woman\u2019s clothed backside while she was hanging out the wash. The woman\u2019s husband feels personally wronged by this and sets out to have Willie lynched.<\/p>\n

Willie escapes from East Texas, changes his name to Nat Love, becomes a buffalo soldier on the West Texas frontier, fights Indians, and makes his way to Deadwood, South Dakota Territory, where he befriends Wild Bill Hickok, acquires the nickname Deadwood Dick, and becomes a mythical literary figure \u2014 all the while pondering the possibility that his dogged adversary is still pursuing him.<\/p>\n

It all makes for a rip-roaring tale from the wild west \u2014 rowdy but also insightful \u2014 told in the fictional Nat Love\u2019s own words.<\/p>\n

There was, in fact, a real Nat Love (1854\u20131921) whose published account of his own adventurous life bears only a slight resemblance to Lansdale\u2019s version. Lansdale acknowledges that the real Nat Love \u201cinspired so much of this story, at least in spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * * * *<\/p>\n

Glenn Dromgoole<\/span> is co-author, with Carlton Stowers, of 101 Essential Texas Books<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Their list includes an earlier Lansdale novel, The Bottoms.<\/span>) Contact him at g.dromgoole@suddenlink.net.<\/p>\n

>> <\/span>Read his past Texas Reads columns in Lone Star Literary Life here.<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 1.17.16\u00a0\u00a0 Lansdale wild west novel gets off to a fast start My favorite journalism professor used to say that if you had an hour to write a story, spend the first fifty minutes on the lead, or opening paragraph. He was exaggerating, of course, but his point was that if you […]<\/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-408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408","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=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}