A New York Times Notable Book • An NPR Best Book of the Year
“Beautifully written. . . . Essential reading [for] anyone who wants to understand how one state changed the trajectory of the country.” —NPR
“Compelling. . . . Timely. . . . There is a sleeping giant in Texas, and Wright captures the frustration and the hope that reverberate across the state each time it stirs.” —The Washington Post
“Superb. . . . An elegant mixture of autobiography and long-form journalism.” —The New York Times Book Review
“Terrific. . . . Valuable and often provocative. . . . Wright’s words could speak for both Texas and America.” —The Dallas Morning News
“Vivid . . . Affectionate and genial . . . Capture[s] the full range of Texas in all its shame and glory . . . An illuminating primer for outsiders who may not live there but have a surfeit of opinions about those who do . . . It’s a testament to Wright’s formidable storytelling skills that a reader will encounter plenty of information without ever feeling lost.” —The New York Times
“Important, timely, and riveting. . . . Wright, a lifelong Texan and acclaimed author, knows his way around the state’s contradictions, from its wild borderlands to its craziest legislators.” —New York
“A godsend . . . . Brilliant analysis. . . . Wright’s treatment flows impressionistically from one topic to the next . . . introducing myriad characters in a cascade of crystalline sketches.” —Newsday
“The most entertaining and edifying nonfiction book I’ve read so far this year . . . [Wright] is a rare beast: an elegant writer and a fearless reporter, with a sense of humor as dry as the plains of west Texas.” —Mary Ann Gwinn, The Seattle Times
“At once a piece of journalism, a love letter to a place and a memoir.. . . [Wright] writes about his state with the fervor, knowledge, and ambivalence that comes from deep-seated familiarity.” —The Wall Street Journal
“Wright’s affectionate, eye-opening, and, at times, rueful love letter to his native state . . . This is Texas in all its fascinating outrageousness.” —The Christian Science Monitor
“The reader comes away with an idea that the state is a place of competing melodies: a bit of Austin country, a few measures of Roy Orbison, a riff from Buddy Holley and, for [Wright], maybe a stanza of ‘Home on the Range.’” —The Boston Globe
“Wright tames his sprawling subject matter with concise sentences and laser-precise word choice . . . Gives readers a front-row seat to the battle within the Texas GOP between business-oriented conservatives, led by House Speaker Joe Straus, and the social-conservative wing headed up by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.” —Houston Chronicle
“Both celebratory and melancholy. . . . The grand scale of Texas, and the sheer range of its places and people—Houston to El Paso, the Panhandle to the Valley—is inevitably compelling to any writer, and Wright is happy just trying to get his arms around it all.” —Austin Chronicle
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