Every Sunday morning the New York Times slaps my driveway long before my day begins. Today, I awoke to the smell of muffins in the oven and the laughter of my family, happily baking away. They know I sleep in on Sundays. They plan for it. By the time I dragged my semi-conscious self to the sofa, coffee was percolating. My daughter had brought in the Times. I flipped instinctively to the Travel section, because buried within it is always the Book Review. This is my section. Each of us has one, but this one is mine.
Today page 21 of the BR has a review of Eleanor Henderson’s The Twelve-mile Straight, written by Ayana Mathis. The first paragraph contains this: “At its best historical fiction isn’t a stump speech or a school lesson, but it sure does illuminate the past, give soul and body to our history so we can sojourn with it a while, in privacy and contemplation. As a useful byproduct, it gives us a fighting chance at recognizing the past’s reverberations in our present. And reverberate it does.” Ms. Henderson’s books deals with the impact of racial hate crimes in a southern family.
On the flip side, page 22, Douglas Brinkley, a fellow Austinite, writes of Hurricane Harvey, Houston, and Larry McMurtry. That McMurtry captured the soul of the Fourth City. The epicenter of my childhood homeland.
Can I just say that the world is ready for First and Seventeen?
My book is timely, New York publishing empire. Read it! Buy it! Publish it!