Austin360 blogs > Out & About > Archives > 2010 > February > 02 > Entry
Building an Austin Social Library (2)
This entry adapts — and builds upon — material from an earlier post.
Like many people, my curiosity about books spans a world of interests. Yet a subset of my reading list specifically informs my reporting on Austin’s social scene. The following titles, read in the past few months, feed that function.
Roy Bedichek’s precise observations on natural life in “Adventures with a Texas Naturalist” remind us that today’s debates about the environment started well before any of us were born. Walter Prescott Webb’s prose is as flat, arid and challenging as the High Plains, but his library-bound research can’t be beat. Like virtually all general histories of the region, “The Great Plains” generously credits Native American, Mexican and Tejano contributions. J. Frank Dobie’s intellectual journey was recently chronicled in Steven Davis’ “J Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind.” The folklorist’s style might seem a bit stilted, boyish by today’s standards, but his once popular subject matter can be easily sampled in the anthology “I’ll Tell You a Tale.”
Texas and beyond — Although Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio and the Valley have cultivated social scenes distinct from Austin’s, many if not most locals came from somewhere else in Texas. So it never hurts to read about the families and stories that helped shape those regions.
On the surface, Robert Rivard’s “Trail of Feathers” is a spellbinding story about the San Antonio editor’s search for his missing reporter, Philip True, and his fight for justice in the labyrinth of Mexico’s legal system. But it also reveals minute ruptures in the social strata of Texas, the Border, Guadalajara and Mexico City, as well as along the Huichol sierra. Thomas Thompson’s “Blood and Money” is an older true-crime story worthy of a second read, stripping away the blinders from Houston’s River Oaks society in the 1970s. Bryan Burrough’s “The Big Rich,” which follows the families who made the first fortunes in the Texas oilfields, then turned them into political power, deserves whatever sustained attention it can receive. I spread copies of it around my Houston family as holiday conversation fodder.
Pure Austin, yesterday and today — Billy Lee Brammers “The Gay Place” is often cited as the Austin novel. It is novelistic. And it gets political Austin in the late 1950s dead to rights. One must swim through a lot of existential partying to get there. But that’s Austin, too. Sarah Bird’s “How Perfect Is That” uses a lighter touch to contrast Bush-era Pemberton with everlasting, funky co-op lifestyle in West Campus (returning to land of “Alamo House”). Bird’s picaresque grasp of comic characters and plot is up there with Armistead Maupin and John Kennedy Toole’s. (Why wasn’t this serialized? Or was it?) The title is silly, but Joe B. Frantz’s “The Forty Acre Follies” is the most complete, entertaining — and satisfying — history of the University of Texas. The fact that UT boss Frank Erwin’s allies tried to suppress it, only makes the volume more valuable.
Ending this short list with David Humphrey’s “Austin: An Illustrated History” seems like a cop-out. Still, this picture book that I formerly used only as a reference work hangs together pretty well as history.
Recently, Danny Camacho, who hails from a distinguished Austin family and has been named an outstanding volunteer at the Austin History Center, suggested that the city name its own official historian. I’d say the first person to best Humphrey’s honorable, but incomplete work — in book form — deserves a nomination.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: Media
Comments
Austinites love to be heard, and we're giving you a bullhorn. We just ask that you keep things civil. Leave out the personal attacks. Do not use profanity, ethnic or racial slurs, or take shots at anyone's sexual orientation or religion. If you can't be nice, we reserve the right to remove your material and ban users who violate our Visitor's agreement. Click here to report comment abuse.