Having landed in Texas, I have sought out the Best of Texas to nourish me in my retirement.

ANN RICHARDS

MOLLY IVINS

WILLIE NELSON

WAYLON JENNINGS- “BOB WILLS IS STILL THE KING”

TOWNES VAN ZANDT

STEVIE RAY VAUGHN

ZZ TOP

JANIS JOPLIN

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.