{"id":605,"date":"2018-12-31T13:03:20","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=605"},"modified":"2018-12-31T13:03:20","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T13:03:20","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=605","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

7.31.16\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Photographer presents portraits from the past<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Fort Worth fine art photographer Jack Knox <\/span>spent eight years exploring and photographing images from the back roads of Texas. The result is his impressive full-color 12-by-12, 136-page collection of color photos, Texas: Ghost Towns, Gas Stations, and a 20-Foot Cowboy<\/span><\/a><\/span> (John M. Hardy Publishing, $48.85 hardcover).<\/p>\n

He might well have added \u201cMovie Palaces\u201d to the title since he also includes quite a few grand old small-town theaters, most of them abandoned but a few still in service.<\/p>\n

The 20-foot cowboy Big Tex statue noted in the title and featured on the cover stands on U.S. Highway 54 in the Panhandle village of Conlen (pop. 69 in 2000), between Dalhart and Stratford. In its day, Knox notes, it straddled the doorway of a steakhouse.<\/p>\n

In the foreword, veteran Texas author Joe Nick Patoski<\/span> says Knox\u2019s pictures \u201care not images of Texas past so much as Texas passing, documenting a way of life that once was but somehow still manages to persist in the here and now. In our minds, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knox offers the trip down memory lane by region, beginning with the Panhandle and continuing on to North Texas, Central Texas, East Texas, the Texas Gulf Coast, South Texas and West Texas.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Family redemption: <\/span>San Angelo author Dana Glossbrenner\u2019s <\/span>novel The Lark<\/span><\/a><\/span> (Boldface Books, $16.95 paperback, $4.99 e-book) is a story about not giving up on families, even when there doesn\u2019t seem to be a lot going for them.<\/p>\n

I have to admit that I almost gave up on this one after the first twenty pages or so. I\u2019m glad I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The main character, twenty-five-year-old male hair stylist Charley Bristow, frequents the local honky-tonk dance hall hoping to find a sweet young gal to dance with and perhaps fall in love with, even though so far he hasn\u2019t been very successful in the love department.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s pretty much struck out with cars and dogs as well as two brief marriages, and lives alone in a scantily-furnished apartment. Two or three times a week he stops by the trailer park to check on his obese, alcoholic, down-and-out mother. Not much ambition or depth and not a guy I particularly wanted to spend a few hours hanging out with or reading about. But I kept going, and pretty soon Charley\u2019s life begins to turn around as he finds a perceptive new girlfriend and discovers some secrets about his family that give him a fresh outlook on life.<\/p>\n

Glossbrenner, a retired English teacher and school counselor who has lived in West Texas all her life, sets her story of family redemption and grace in the fictional towns of Sulfur Gap and Briargrove, somewhere around Abilene, San Angelo and Big Spring.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Dromgoole\u2019s<\/span> latest book is More Civility, Please. <\/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 7.31.16\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Photographer presents portraits from the past Fort Worth fine art photographer Jack Knox spent eight years exploring and photographing images from the back roads of Texas. The result is his impressive full-color 12-by-12, 136-page collection of color photos, Texas: Ghost Towns, Gas Stations, and a 20-Foot Cowboy (John M. Hardy […]<\/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-605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605","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=605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}