Although I am not a native of the Lone Star State, I would like to share with you the eccentric side of Texas that I have come to appreciate and love.
ANN RICHARDS
MOLLY IVINS
WILLIE NELSON
KINKY FRIEDMAN
JIM HIGHTOWER
LARRY McMURTRY
CORMAC McCARTHY
Since 1976, the Rhode Island–born and Tennessee-bred McCarthy has lived in El Paso, where he completed his fourth and fifth novels, Suttree and Blood Meridian—both critically heralded (“invites comparisons with Faulkner’s best,” “without parallel in American writing today”), both commercial flops. Now and again, a visitor from some distant city would show up at the El Paso office of attorney Bobby Perel, McCarthy’s friend and conduit to the outside world, and ask for a chance to meet the author.
KATHERINE ANNE PORTER
Born in India Creek, Texas, in 1890, Katherine Anne Porter lost her mother at the age of two. Raised primarily by her paternal grandmother, Porter became strong and self-reliant at an early age. Both the loss of her mother and her father’s subsequent neglect had a lasting effect on Porter—making her incredibly attentive to the harsh realities of human endeavor.