“When
I was growing up, Texas history was a lot easier to follow. Travis drew a line
in the sediment. Crockett went down swinging. Bowie dispatched many Mexicans from
his sick-bed. Moses Rose chose not to stay, swung over the wall, then morphed,
later on, into Glenn Ford in The Man From the Alamo. And nobody told us
Sam Houston was a big drunk.
Besides, anything important that we wanted to know could be found in that delectable
comic book with the curious title, Texas History Movies.” So asserts Don
Graham in the article, “Nation State,” a chapter in this witty and insightful
anthology.
Lone Star history buffs, of course, are familiar with Dr. Graham,
J. Frank Dobie Regents Professor of American and English Literature at the University
of Texas at Austin. Former president
of the Texas Institute of Letters and a prolific scholar, his books include No
Name on the Bullet: A Biography of Audie Murphy (1989), Giant Country: Essays
on Texas (1998), Kings of Texas: The 150-Year Saga of an American Ranching Empire
(2002), Lone Star Literature: From the Red River to the Rio Grande (2003), Literary
Austin (2007), and State Fare: An Irreverent Guide to Texas Movies (2008).
Additionally, he serves as a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly.
State
of Minds is a delight to read. According to Dr. Graham, the book “asks of
its audience only an interest in…Texas literature, history, and film;” it is comprised
of eighteen articles, many of them previously published in Texas Monthly
magazine. Among the topics he covers are the lives and writings of John Howard
Griffin, J. Frank Dobie, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, John Graves, William
A. Owens, Donald Barthelme, and Patricia Highsmith. He also discusses such movies
as The Alamo (John Wayne’s interpretation), which contains some “ridiculous
errors,” Brokeback Mountain, The Last Picture Show, and the “glitzy”
television hit, Dallas, which starred Larry Hagman (of I Dream of Jeannie
fame) as J. R. Ewing, “the beloved and much hated oilman/wheeler-dealer.” The
Duke’s 1960 picture, Graham contends, “wasn’t history; it was a sentimental ballad
or, better yet, a sermon about freedom, the Cold War, the concept of a republic,
and a bunch of other Big Ideas that are in there somewhere.” In his essay on Brokeback
Mountain, Graham explores how the controversial film reverberated “through
the culture” and even “the sports world.” Following a defeat by the San Antonio
Spurs, for example, “Coach Phil Jackson of the Los Angeles Lakers explained to
the press: ‘We call this a Brokeback Mountain game because there’s so much
penetration and kickouts. It was one of those games.’ The NBA made him issue a
formal apology: ‘If I’ve offended any horses, Texans, cowboys, or gays, I apologize.’”
In sum, students
of Texas history, especially those intrigued by pop culture and literature, will
enjoy this book, another commendable contribution from Professor Graham.
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Review by Dr. Kirk Bane (Blinn College—Bryan campus)
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