The virtues of Texas, some book news, and a new word for the day
Downtown Fort Worth, taken from a country road about twenty-two miles away.
Photo by Mason Scott
Texas has been getting a badrap lately, thanks to Ken Paxton and his barbaric handling of the case of KateCox, the young Dallas mother of two who was pregnant with a fetus that wouldnot live and would endanger her future fertility and possibly her life. Paxtonruled that she had not shown sufficient evidence of danger to her life towarrant an abortion and threatened any hospitals and physicians who performedthe procedure. His horrific judgment, which he was in no way qualified to make,was backed up by the Texas Supreme Court. All this is known not only to mostTexans but across the country, where Texas is being scorned as the armpit ofthe world, a place most would never move, etc.
As someone whose whole careerhas revolved around the history and literature of Texas, I feel compelled tojump to my state’s defense. Yes, I’m a transplant, but I’ve lived here overfifty-five years and feel pretty much at home, have no desire to go elsewhere.The picture above shows just one fascinating aspect of the Texas landscape—theflat open space. But I thought it spoke of Texas as a special place. Texaspeople are friendly and good, the history is rich, the landscape varied andsometimes spectacular, and the food terrific, whether you want beans andbarbecue or a Michelin-rated upscale experience
We have several new high-endrestaurants in Fort Worth, from French to Italian to seafood, and yet we treasureour hole-in-the-wall places where you can get the best chicken-fried steak or chiliin the world. Our Stockyards National Historic District attracts tourists fromall over the world, and it’s not unusual to hear the babble of foreign voiceson the brick-paved streets.
What’s not to love aboutTexas? The politicians, and we’re working on that.
Kate Cox’s tragiccircumstances have held much of my attention in the last days, but today a newbookish threat grabbed my mind. It’s called review-bombing. A debut author,first book, a sci-fi novel, scheduled for release next spring, began leavingone-star reviews of competitors on Goodreads, Amazon’s book review web site.Not only did this author trash other debut others, particularly people ofcolor, but in each review, she praised her own forthcoming book. Dumb, dumber,and dumbest. What a giveaway. The guilty author was found out, of course, andher contract with Penguin/Random House cancelled. So her book will not becoming out in the spring. She did apologize, blaming it all on addiction andnow declaring she is sober. I’m not sure that’s enough.
Do you check reviews whenconsidering a book? If you do, I’d advise ignoring one-star reviews. They aremost often revenge-motivated or written by someone who has not read the book. Somepeople delight in being negative and destructive. My philosophy is that if Ican’t leave at least three stars, I simply don’t review. Why ruin an author’shopes? On Goodreads daily emails, I’ve noticed one author who gets on a run ofreading a particular author’s works—recently, it was Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfemysteries—but she almost never gives more than three stars. And I want toscream, “If you don’t like the books any better than that, quit reading them.Choose a new author. Quit damaging this author, though Rex Stout probably won’tsuffer much from his posthumous reviews.
Still I wish readers would bea bit more sensitive to the author’s feelings and reputations. If you like abook, say so on Amazon.com or Goodreads.com. A review doesn’t have to be longand deep. Two or three sentences that say, “I liked this book” will thrill mostauthors. And it doesn’t take that many positive reviews to boost an author’sratings. If you can’t find much good to say about it, leave it alone. Readerswill assess their own and reach their own ratings.
And my new word for the day:elitch, which means ghostly or weird. I read it in a review of a WWI noveltitled, The Warm Hands of Ghosts—a very favorable review, by the bye.But I thought it an odd word. It doesn’t even sound like an adjective.
Okay. Lesson over for the day!
