09/11/2023
Journalist and novelist Wright, whose nonfiction work The Looming Tower won the Pulitzer Prize, brings decades of insider knowledge to bear in this devilishly witty send-up of Texas politics. The novel opens at a funeral in West Texas; the death of a longtime Democratic state representative has drawn head honchos from Austin sniffing a chance to flip the seat. Among them is L.D. Sparks, a lobbyist scouting for a Republican replacement. A news clip of a local rancher bursting through flames to save a horse from a burning barn leads Sparks to military veteran Sonny Lamb, who with his wife, Lola, is struggling to hold onto his herd amid a devastating drought. Sparks sees “pure political gold” in the video and tells the dumbfounded Lambs he can get Sonny elected, casting the rancher’s lack of experience as “a chance to write your own script.” The plan works, and the bumbling and good-hearted Lamb suffers a few knocks while adjusting to his new life in Austin, where he eventually starts resisting his party’s puppetmasters. Though the fable-like ending is a bit too transparently written for big-screen adaptation, Wright never loses sight of the dark consequences of all the political shenanigans. No one emerges unscathed in this rollicking satire. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. (Sept.)
08/01/2023
Any novel about politics in present-day Texas is almost certain to be about corruption, looniness, and knee-jerk reactionism. There's no room for an idealist in the State House, with its 151 members ranked strictly in order of seniority. But an idealist is what Sonny Lamb—veteran, rancher, Texan for six generations back—is. A fixer got Sonny elected, judging him a naïf without ideas, amenable to being led. But Sonny turns out to have a mind of his own. He wants to introduce a bill to reclaim the water beneath the bone-dry soil so that ranchers like him don't have to sell their spreads to pay their bills. But things don't work that way in Texas: somebody pays for anything that gets passed, and nobody rocks the boat. Still, by the end of this novel, Sonny emerges victorious, making him maybe the first great semi-decent politician Texas has seen in decades. VERDICT Wright's (The End of October) latest is at its best when characterizing the animals in this political swamp; other times it borders on the formulaic. But he carries it off well in this work that compares with the political novels of Ward Just and Thomas Mallon.—David Keymer
2023-07-13
An unknown West Texas cattle rancher is elected to the State House of Representatives and becomes a star.
The second novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist is totally different from his first, The End of October (2020), a thriller about bioterrorism that appeared right at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is also dramatically better. Tapping into his prodigious knowledge of and affection for the state of Texas, Wright gives us a novel about politics and people that at its best recalls classics like The Gay Place by Billy Lee Brammer and the work of Larry McMurtry. It begins when a powerful lobbyist named L.D. Sparks—“a silver-haired cynic in a gray western-cut suit and handmade boots”—shows up at the funeral of a longtime Democratic state rep, hoping to find a Republican who can take the seat. That turns out to be Sonny Lamb, who, with his wife, Lola, is barely keeping their herd going through the drought; they aren’t having much luck expanding their own family, either. An Iraq vet with a checkered past, a currently incarcerated father, and no college degree, Sonny nonetheless has the heart of a hero, as we learn when he rushes into a burning barn to save a little girl’s horse. The novel moves nimbly and amusingly through the campaign and Sonny’s early days in Austin, with highlights including a feral-hog hunt and a fertility clinic debacle. When the newly elected Rep. Lamb chooses to follow his own lights rather than “dance with the one who brung [him],” he incites the ire of L.D. and his cabal, who immediately kick off plans for his ruin. Wright’s prose is full of original and funny formulations—one character has “a smirk where his smile should be”; small towns between San Antonio and El Paso “[cling] to the interstate like ticks on a dog”; an obnoxious catfish farmer–turned-politico is “the brains behind the QAnon caucus,” which is so dry it crackles. Just a few complaints: The sections about Sonny’s plan to convert the wastewater produced by fracking into a solution for the drought sometimes seem to be turning into New Yorker articles, and the storyline about Sonny and Lola’s marital troubles is not convincing.
Wonderful characters, Texas-sized helpings of wit and insight, and, believe it or not, a vision of post-partisan redemption.
A rollicking satire . . . A fiery sample of the chili of Texas politics: equal parts tragedy, comedy and farce . . . The reader has to hold onto the rigging because this bronco spins, bucks, kicks and bites . . . I actually had to put the book down. I was laughing so hard my dog Gus was worried about me . . . As with all good Texas tales, there’s a showdown, but in Wright’s version the lines are as muddy and winding as the Brazos River. In fact, this is not really a morality tale. It’s a character study, cleverly hidden within a raucous, fast-paced, hilarious sendup.”
— Paul Begala, The New York Times Book Review
“Hilariously captures the unbridled absurdity that is a session of the Texas Legislature . . . Wright has a perfect feel for Texas landscapes and characters, for dialects and foibles . . . Mr. Texas is billed as a comic novel, and it is undoubtedly funny. But there’s a wistfulness about it, too. Wright leaves open the possibility that a group of politicians—guided by nothing more than good faith and their love of the Lone Star State—might find a way past partisan rancor and cynicism.”
—Shawna Seed, Dallas Morning News
“Lawrence Wright’s Mr. Texas is an uproarious novel about the kitschy weirdness of Texas politics. Every page crackles with deadpan wit, satirical rube philosophy, and keen journalistic observation. But just because Mr. Texas is a hoot doesn’t mean it lacks erudition. This is a classic American political novel in the tradition of Bill Lee Brammer’s The Gay Place and William Kennedy’s Roscoe. My only regret is that Larry McMurtry and Molly Ivins aren’t alive to laugh out loud with the rest of us readers. Trust me: Mr. Texas is an irresistible humdinger of a book that has major motion picture written all over it.”
—Douglas Brinkley, author of Silent Spring Revolution
“Smart, biting, wickedly funny, and really good company: If Mr. Texas had a Tinder profile, that might be it. Lawrence Wright, whose nonfiction journalism is exemplary, proves he can hit from both sides of the plate with this brilliant work of fiction. His skewering of politics is pitch perfect. Mr. Texas is required reading in these politically turbulent times.”
—Susan Orlean, author of On Animals
“Billionaires and lobbyists battling public servants with the future of Texas in the balance. This is the novel our Texas politics deserves. The craven and absurd, the big hearted and hopeful, the old guard and the next generation, these are the characters who decide the fate of our state and by extension our nation.”
—Beto O'Rourke, author of We've Got to Try
“Lawrence Wright is the foremost anthropologist of all things Texas, a place where truth is indeed often stranger than fiction. In Mr. Texas, Wright examines the seemingly inexplicable nature of our horrifying partisan politics today in a way that makes the reader both laugh out loud and quietly tear up, but if you're a prisoner of hope, you'll find in these pages reason to keep believing. And it's a wildly entertaining kick in the chaps.”
—Mark McKinnon, creator of The Circus
“Too tragically real to be fiction, too funny to be journalism, too heartfelt to be satire, Mr. Texas is a virtuoso blend of all three, an instant Lone Star classic that employs humor to devastating effect. Laughing at the pitch perfect asides of a politician who ‘got his ass vulcanized’ or was ‘a billionaire back when that meant something,’ Mr. Texas accomplishes what only the best satire can: It shocks us into recognizing the ‘piñata of partisanship’ that has left Texas ‘a place where hatred was key to political advancement.’ But it is Wright’s impeccable balancing of sincere empathy along with this genuine satirical deconstruction of their culture that makes Mr. Texas the triumph it is.”
—Sarah Bird, author of Last Dance on the Starlight Pier
“Lawrence Wright is an American original. He’s one of our most cosmopolitan writers but also rooted in his beloved Texas. His new novel is a panoramic journey through the bramble of Texas politics—all the way to today’s debates about fracking, transgender rights and migrants. His characters are complex and believable, drawn from real-life Texans that Larry has known over decades. It’s characteristic of Larry’s limitless talent that now he’s written a can’t-put-it-down novel!”
—David Ignatius, author of The Paladin
“Original and funny . . . Tapping into his prodigious knowledge of and affection for the state of Texas, Wright gives us a novel about politics and people . . . Wonderful characters, Texas-sized helpings of wit and insight, and, believe it or not, a vision of post-partisan redemption.”
—Kirkus
“Wright brings decades of insider knowledge to bear in this devilishly witty send-up of Texas politics . . . No one emerges unscathed in this rollicking satire.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A seductive portrait through words [of] the hot, barren beauty of West Texas . . . A fascinating portrait of Lone Star legislating.”
—Booklist
This scathing satire blows the lid off Texas politics, revealing the power that lobbyists have over politicians and how even the most well-intentioned can get caught in the meat grinder. Television and film actor Steven Weber is pitch-perfect as struggling ranch owner Sonny Lamb, who finds himself in the spotlight after he rescues a girl and her horse from a fire. Influence-peddler L.D. Sparks persuades Lamb to run for the Texas Legislature, but after the victory Lamb learns the true cost of Sparks's aid. Weber makes us love Lamb even as we watch him spiral into the abyss. Weber delivers the story with skill and wit, always from the hero's perspective. The work is a satire, but the political backbiting and dirty dealing sound authentic. M.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine
