Notes From Texas -- W.C. Jameson, ed.

In my post about this book the other day I neglected to mention the editor, W.C. Jameson, and my apologies for that. W.C. did a great job putting the book together and provides a fine autobiographical introduction that serves as an extra essay. I’ve read the other essays now – in fact, I could hardly put the book down – and enjoyed all of them. I consider Judy Alter, Elmer Kelton, James Ward Lee, and Carlton Stowers friends, so naturally I was glad to learn more about them and how they came to be not only writers, but Texas writers. All the other essays were interesting, too, especially the common themes that emerged. Almost everyone mentions the desire to write emerging at a young age, as well as the desire to write about Texas and present it realistically. Goodness knows, as far as my own work goes most of my characters and plots are a lot closer to fantasy than reality, but the settings of the stories are as close to accurate geographically as I can make them, and I strive for realism in the way people talk and the trappings of everyday life. I’ve never forgotten reading an article by “Ellery Queen” about the work of Dashiell Hammett in which he discusses how fanciful most of Hammett’s plots are, but how what made them groundbreaking at the time was the realistic way in which those fanciful plots were presented. I try to do the same thing. Not that I’m comparing myself to Hammett in any other way, mind you.

But now I’m rambling (another tendency of mine) and what I really wanted to say is that NOTES FROM TEXAS is a fine book, and anyone who’s interested in writers and writing ought to enjoy it.