High Gloss
Laura Furman handles The Glass House with a little too much care; Elmer Kelton’s novels take you way out West; a new filed guide digs into Texas’ past; Hearts will win yours.
Writer-at-large Stephen Harrigan is a longtime contributor to Texas Monthly whose work has also appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic, the New York Times Book Review, and other national publications. He was a finalist for the 2015 National Magazine Awards in the commentary category for his writing at Texas Monthly. The following year, he won the Texas Institute of Letters’ Edwin “Bud” Shrake Award for his Texas Monthly story “Off Course.” He has also received the TIL’s Lon Tinkle Award for lifetime achievement, the Texas Medal of Arts Award, and the Texas Book Festival’s Texas Writer Award, and he is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame.
Harrigan is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-winning novels The Gates of the Alamo and Remember Ben Clayton; Big Wonderful Thing, a history of Texas; and The Eye of the Mammoth, a career-spanning collection of his essays, many of which were written for Texas Monthly. Harrigan’s latest book is the novel The Leopard Is Loose. He is also a screenwriter who has written many movies for television. He lives in Austin.
Laura Furman handles The Glass House with a little too much care; Elmer Kelton’s novels take you way out West; a new filed guide digs into Texas’ past; Hearts will win yours.
Perhaps. At least they’re on the right track and trying hard.
South Texas went into a frenzy preparing for Hurricane Allen, then the guest of honor never showed up.
Three Texas poets word their way into print; two new novels trace the adventures of Neanderthals and knights-errant.
In Music for Chameleons it’s hard to tell whether Truman Capote is telling the whole truth or nothing at all of the truth; Conspiracy ferrets out much of the truth about John F. Kennedy’s murder.
Along the silent, lovely beach, tiny armies fight in the tide, fierce battles rage in the sky, and nocturnal marauders slither across the sand.
Michael Mewshaw reopens the case of a boyhood friend who murdered his parents’ Rober Shattuck reexamines the story of the Wild Boy.
Here’s how to achieve inner peace, perfect serenity, spiritual calm, and a nice, neat lawn.
Wallace Stegner’s love of the West and respect for its history make his works as distinctive as the region that inspired them.
For hundreds of years man—from the Comanche to the backpacker—has tried to conquer Big Bend. Still, it remains wild, stark, and pristine.
Roadside Geology of Texas makes traveling a rocky road fun. In the Shining Mountains finds nature tarnished, but The Spawning Run shows it unspoiled.
Gordon Baxter’s Village Creek is just barely navigable. Amado Muro was a bohemian before it was fashionable.
The intricate underwater passages and pristine water of Jacob’s Well fascinate divers. Too often, the fascination proves fatal.
At Houston’s Jefferson Davis Hospital, the wonders of modern medicine collide with the raw realities of birth, poverty, neglect and hope.
John Updike’s problems are our pleasures. Mean Scrooge McDuck returns in a nostalgic comic-book collection.
A.C. Greene’s singular, exquisite vision of West Texas; a thriller that’s better than it should be; and a historical novel with too much history.
In his new book Tom Wolfe poses this question: were the Mercury astronauts men or monkeys? Thomas Thompson changes his journalistic setting from Houston to the far East to produce a book about an astonishing criminal.
By Stephen Harrigan and Nicholas Lemann
Don’t look now, but the rather odd gentleman with the suspicious accent and outlandish military getup may not be exactly what he seems.
Fast food is tasteless and vulgar. There are other good things about it, too.
Two novels with novel views of frontier days. And, Howard Hughes revisited by two reporters who leave no stone of his rocky history unturned.
By Stephen Harrigan and Harry Hurt III
The best thing about a trip to Florida is coming back to Padre Island.
The riddle of the French explorer lies buried beneath the Gulf of Mexico, but what is it, where is it, and why, oh why, are we looking for it?
Don’t laugh at a model railroader or call his little train a toy.
Some kids may fail at school and it’s not their fault.
If you’re going bald, their’s only thing to do: blame mother.
Max Apple’s oddball touches make a zany and endearing novel.
When this young man decided to go West, he made it as far as a dude ranch in Bandera.
If the race is to the swift, what’s lefty over for the slow?
It’s tough to select food in a fast-moving serving line. A cafeteria is no place for the timid.
If you think parenthood begins with dirty diapers and 2 a.m. feedings, you’re nine months off.
I escaped once, but they sent me back.
The importance of being a prairie dog.
Where is Lloyd Bridges when you really need him?
In which our author finds it’s one thing to be a genius; it’s another to be smart.
Poetry is in motion in Texas.
Especially not in Sweetwater: the score at last count was Humans 10,000, Rattlers 0.
Dope sellers obey the law—of supply and demand.
A strip-mining company made her an offer she couldn’t refuse.
That’s the message Ray Stanford sends nightly into outer space; so far no one has answered.
Can Bubbles find happiness in a 30-foot tank?
The Alabama-Coushatta Indian Reservation is a braves’ new world.
You remember, don’t you? That's the place John Wayne died.
Out on the Gulf in a small boat, searching for the makings of shrimp cocktails, shrimp baskets, and shrimp salads.
Cuddling up to a thousand pounds of ravenous hunger.
Great ambulance drivers are made, not born.
Alpha waves, past lives, and other explorations of the subconscious.
Across Yucatan on pennies a day. An intrepid traveler reports.
Staying alive day by day . . . by day.
The Federal prison in Fort Worth is unique in more ways than one.
RETURN OF THE OLD PUCKERTHE ASTRODOME HAS REALLY OUTDONE itself. They had the help, though, of Hollywood press agentry and one of the bigger mouths in professional sports, so the Dome can’t take all the credit. Irregardless of culpability, it was an impressive show, that King-Riggs tennis match, and it
By Stephen Harrigan, Al Reinert and Jane Sumner