The author's recollection of
meeting Somerset Maugham -- one of the author's literary heros -- struck a
chord with me. Having the occasion to meet a few of the people I looked up to
as a teen, it brought to the surface those nervous feelings of wanting to
register on that person's radar and say the right things in the fleeting moment
you have with him or her.
It's amazing how much you can learn
about people and culture through the study of the lowly potato.
I love the photos of the abandoned
movie theaters in Texas featured -- some of them constructed in incredibly
opulent taste. The contrast between the evident disuse and the obvious splendor
that the theaters offered when they were still shiny says much more than words
can. Although the author does a good job in his own right as well.
When I think of Texas I don't
immediately think "Lighthouses" -- and I grew up on the coast. T.
Lindsey Baker does his usual excellent job of exploring his subject showing
that Lighthouses are as "Texas" as oil wells. Also the paintings are
quite peaceful.
Unless you are a Burroughs scholar,
you probably don't know much about his time in Texas and Mexico other than the
infamous "William Tell" episode. The author unearths new material,
fleshing out this little-known time in Burroughs’s life and how it shaped him
and his writing as he tried to move beyond it.
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