The Gay Place

by Billy Lee Brammer, Don Graham (Introduction)

Overview

Set in Texas, The Gay Place consists of three interlocking novels, each with a different protagonist—a member of the state legislature, the state's junior senator, and the governor's press secretary. The governor himself, Arthur Fenstemaker, a master politician, infinitely canny and seductive, remains the dominant figure throughout.

Billy Lee Brammer—who served on Lyndon Johnson's staff—gives us here "the excitement of a political carnival: the sideshows, the freaks, and the ghoulish comedy atmosphere" (Saturday Review).

Originally published in 1961, The Gay Place is at once a cult classic and a major American novel.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780292708310
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	03/01/1995
Series:	Texas Classics
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	560
Sales rank:	424,922
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 1.20(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction
The Flea Circus
Room Enough to Caper
Country Pleasures

What People are Saying About This

Willie Morris

The best novel about American Politics in our time.

Gore Vidal

An American classic in which a Johnsonian figure named Arthur 'Goddam' Fenstemaker strides through the pages, large, earthy, intelligent, threatening, working it seemed more often on the side of the angels than against them.

Gore Vidal

An American classic in which a Johnsonian figure named Arthur 'Goddam' Fenstemaker strides through the pages, large, earthy, intelligent, threatening, working it seemed more often on the side of the angels than against them.

Editorial Reviews

An acute portrait of the capitol city’s politics and social mores, circa the fifties.

Texas Monthly

An acute portrait of the capitol city's politics and social mores, circa the fifties.-- "Texas Monthly"

From the Publisher

"An acute portrait of the capitol city’s politics and social mores, circa the fifties."

Texas Monthly

There are two classic American political novels. One is All the King's Men. . . . the other is The Gay Place, a stunning , original, intensely human novel inspired by Lyndon Johnson. . . . It will be read a hundred years from now.

New York Times Book Review - David Halberstam

An American classic in which a Johnsonian figure named Arthur 'Goddam' Fenstemaker strides through the pages, large, earthy, intelligent, threatening, working it seemed more often on the side of the angels than against them.

Gore Vidal

The best novel about American politics in our time.

Willie Morris

There are two classic American political novels. One is All the King's Men. . . . the other is The Gay Place, a stunning , original, intensely human novel inspired by Lyndon Johnson. . . . It will be read a hundred years from now.
— David Halberstam

New York Times Book Review

There are two classic American political novels. One is All the King's Men….the other is The Gay Place, a stunning, original, intensely human novel inspired by Lyndon Johnson….It will be read a hundred years from now.
—New York Times Book Review

David Halberstam

Since it was published in 1961, some have come to believe that Brammer’s novel deserves a space alongside ALL THE KING’S MEN as the most insightful American political novels of the twentieth century. Certainly Brammer’s premature death and the fact that he never wrote another book have helped burnish THE GAY PLACE’s mystique. It is really three interlocking novellas in one, connected by the titanic figure Arthur Fenstemaker, the exuberant governor of Texas and the state’s dominant political figure. George Guidall is alive to the oddballs, scamps, and sleazebags who constantly make appearances in Brammer’s roiling work. He is even more attuned to the three protagonists, who wrestle with complex challenges concerning love, duty, and the balance between public responsibility and personal fulfillment. M.O. © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

OCT/NOV 07 - AudioFile