Lawrence Wright has long been a favorite staff writer of mine from The New Yorker, I recently read his 2007 Pulitzer Prize winning book The Looming Tower after watching the TV mini series based on the book. I should have known it would have been so impressive given his work for The New Yorker. Anyway, I was excited to learn that he had written a non fiction book on Texas, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State (2018). It would be preparation for my first visit to the Lone Star State. In the first chapter: ""The Charms, Such as They Are", Wright explains his affection for the place where he has lived most of his life. He sums it up as thus:
I think Texas has nurtured an immature political culture that has done terrible damage to the state and to the nation. Because Texas is a part of almost everything in modern America-the South, the West, the Plains, Hispanic and immigrant communities, the border, the divide between rural areas and the cities-what happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation. Illinois, and New Jersey may be more corrupt, Kansas and Louisiana more dysfunctional, but they don't bear the responsibility of being the future.
This is followed by Chapter Two: "A Tale of Three Wells" which looks at the oil industry and its impact on the growth of the state. In the third chapter, "Houston, We Have a Problem" Wright takes a historical look at one of the great Texas cities-Houston as well as the NASA space program based there. One surprising fact that emerges is that Houston is the only major city in America without zoning laws. Another is that it is the the single most ethnically diverse metro area in the country. Still another is that the city is over 600 square miles-so big that Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit could all fit within the city limits simultaneously. There's also a fun little digression into the sale of the Astrodome. Next in "Culture Explained" Wright explains his theory of culture in which there are two levels. Level one is basic building block of culture things that have been cemented into everyday culture such as Tex Mex food, pickups, and the like. While Wright sees Level Two culture arrives with money and is imported-it is the culture that is longed for such as museums, ballet, and opera. And Level Three culture is about "returning to one's roots, self-confidence and occasionally forgiveness." His examples of Level Three are Beyonce's Lemonade and the Lake Flato Library in Austin. In Chapter Five, "The Cradles of Presidents" discussed the the three presidents that have called Texas home: Lyndon B. Johnson, George W. H. Bush, and George W. Bush. In the subsequent chapter, "Turn the Radio On" his discusses the AM and FM phenomena-FM is for the city dwellers, AM is for Trumpland and piety and paranoia are the main subjects. Alex Jones of Infowars is one subject analyzed as are mass shootings and the open carry gun laws plus the other permissive gun laws and other aspects of Texas paranoia.Dallas-the big "Big D" is the focus of Chapter Seven. Wright starts out with the Black Lives Matters protest in Dallas in which policemen were shot and that leads back to the Kennedy assassination. Politics comes to the forefront in Chapter Eight "Sausage Makers" has Wright proclaim:
Fairly considered, the Texas legislature is more functional than the U.S. Congress, and more genteel than the House of Commons, but a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state's reputation for aggressive know-nothing-ism and proudly retrograde politics.
There's a section on the career of W. Lee "Pappy" O'Daniel, a true to life populist-that I thought was a fictional caricature-since the Coen Brothers introduced such a character in their 2000 comedy O'Brother, Where Art Thou? There was significant discussion of state politicians who don't want their state to become another California. As well as Texas' obsession with the bathroom bill banning transgender people from using their non birth certificate sex bathrooms. Austin gets its Chapter, Nine, "The City of the Violet Crown". Here Wright talks about how living in Austin is forgivable to outsiders in a way that living in Texas is not. Austin is Wright's place of residence and the second most popular tourist destination after Las Vegas! Incredulously Matthew McConaughey was a former neighbor to Wright. Politics once again is the focus in Chapter Ten, "More Sausage." In the following chapter the relationship between Texas and Mexico is analyzed in "Borderlands." The musical legacy of the state is discussed in "The High Lonesome." And "Far West, Far Out" looks at the remoteness of West Texas and the irony of the Martha artist colony that is situated there. In "Among the Confederates" Wright comes to terms with is life in Texas and revels where he has decided to be lain to rest. Here are some random facts I learned while reading the book:
Texas is near the bottom on education spending and academic achievement.
About 35 percent of Texans own guns.
In the decade between 2005 and 2015, more than 300,000 Americans were killed by guns compared with 94 who died in domestic terror attacks.
I really enjoyed this comprehensive and eclectic look at Texas. It reminds me of one of my other favorite books from 2018-Sam Anderson's book on Oklahoma City, Boomtown.
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