{"id":789,"date":"2018-12-31T14:00:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=789"},"modified":"2018-12-31T14:00:37","modified_gmt":"2018-12-31T14:00:37","slug":"glenn-dromgooles-texas-reads-column-appears-weekly-at-lonestarliterary-com-46","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/?p=789","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

1.15.2017\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Novel pits Pancho Villa against railroad baron<\/h1>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump,<\/span> sets his new historical novel in El Paso and Mexico and pits revolutionary general Pancho Villa against an American railroad baron.<\/p>\n

El Paso<\/span><\/a><\/span> (W.W. Norton, $27.99 hardcover) is a fast-moving 477-page epic that mixes in true-life historical figures, like future general George Patton and cowboy movie star Tom Mix, with fictional characters as Villa wages war on Americans and Mexicans alike in Northern Mexico in 1916.<\/p>\n

The story revolves around the fictional Shaughnessy family. The flamboyant Col. John Shaughnessy has turned over most of his struggling railroad empire to even-tempered son Arthur, freeing up the colonel to host lavish parties on his yacht and tend to his vast ranching empire in Mexico. But when the ranch comes under attack from Villa \u2014 and two children are abducted \u2014 the whole Shaughnessy family, including Arthur, becomes involved.<\/p>\n

The colonel and Arthur lead a posse to track down Villa and rescue the children as the revolutionary army takes refuge in the mountains after a series of defeats by the Mexican federales. Meanwhile, an aspiring matador whose wife was kidnapped has also joined the hunt and eventually will face a seemingly impossible live-or-die bullfight wickedly conceived by Villa. A German spy figures into the story as well. War is raging in Europe in 1916, but the United States has stayed out of it so far. The spy\u2019s secret mission is to keep America preoccupied with the Mexican revolution so it won\u2019t get involved in the war across the ocean.<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s much more: A vicious bear, rudely awakened from hibernation, attacks Arthur Shaughnessy. Arthur\u2019s longtime best friend betrays him. An American communist activist sympathetic to Villa\u2019s cause comes to question his brutal tactics. A teen-age girl kidnap victim narrowly escapes from a jaguar and teaches Villa how to play chess and to read. And what do Tom Mix and George Patton have to do with all of this? Well, there\u2019s plenty of action in Groom\u2019s first novel in nearly twenty years. Groom also writes nonfiction, focusing primarily on American military history.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/span><\/span>Texas horror:<\/span> An anthology of Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers,<\/span><\/a><\/span> edited by E. R. Bills<\/span> and Bret McCormick<\/span> (Eakin Press, $16.95 paperback), includes seventeen short stories by Texas fiction writers. The biggest name in the lineup is Joe R. Lansdale,<\/span> a prolific master storyteller from Nacogdoches who contributed a tale about an elderly couple who have a rendezvous with Death. She wants to go first, but so does he. Is it possible they might meet Death together on a stormy night? Would Death be that accommodating?<\/p>\n

Plenty of chilling tales here for those dreary winter evenings.<\/p>\n

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

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

Texas Reads>> archiveGlenn Dromgoole 1.15.2017\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Novel pits Pancho Villa against railroad baron Winston Groom, the best-selling author of Forrest Gump, sets his new historical novel in El Paso and Mexico and pits revolutionary general Pancho Villa against an American railroad baron. El Paso (W.W. Norton, $27.99 hardcover) is a fast-moving 477-page epic that mixes in […]<\/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-789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789","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=789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}