Mr. Texas
A novel
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- 11,99 €
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- 11,99 €
Publisher Description
AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • From the Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author, a hilarious, sharply drawn send-up of local politics • A novel about a dark-horse candidate who risks his personal happiness for a career in the Texas House of Representatives • "Required reading in these politically turbulent times.”—Susan Orlean, author of On Animals
“A rollicking satire . . ."— Paul Begala, The New York Times Book Review
Sonny Lamb is an affable, if floundering, rancher with the unfortunate habit of becoming a punchline in his Texas hometown. Most recently, to everyone’s headshaking amusement, he bought his own bull at an auction. But when a fire breaks out at a neighbor’s farm, Sonny makes headlines in another way: not waiting for help, he bolts to the farm where his heroic actions make the evening news.
Almost immediately, and seemingly out of nowhere, a handsomely dressed lobbyist from Austin arrives at his ranch door and asks if he’d like to run for his West Texas district’s seat in the state legislature. Though Sonny has zero experience and doesn’t consider himself political at all, the fate of his ranch—and perhaps his marriage to the lovely “cowgirl” Lola—hangs in the balance. With seemingly no other choice, Sonny decides to throw his hat in the ring .
As he navigates life in politics—from running a campaign to negotiating in the capitol—Sonny must learn the ropes, weighing his own ethics and environmental concerns against the pressures of veteran politicians, savvy lobbyists, and his own party. In tracing Sonny’s attempt to balance his marriage and morality with an increasingly volatile professional life, Lawrence Wright has crafted an irresistibly funny and clever roller-coaster ride about one man’s pursuit of goodness in the Lonestar State.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Pulitzer Prize–winning author and journalist Lawrence Wright has tackled some weighty topics in his career, but in this laugh-out-loud satire, the Dallas-based writer keeps it close to home, skewering Texan politics. Political fixer L.D. Sparks is sitting at a small-town West Texas diner enjoying some chicken-fried steak when he sees a news report about a local rancher and volunteer fireman rescuing a young girl from a barn fire. As luck would have it, L.D. is looking for a fresh candidate to replace a recently deceased state representative—and he may just have found his man. Wright hits all the right buttons in this hilarious political farce. If you could use a smart, amusing break from real-life politics, Mr. Texas is just the ticket.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist and novelist Wright, whose nonfiction work The Looming Tower won the Pulitzer Prize, brings decades of insider knowledge to bear in this devilishly witty send-up of Texas politics. The novel opens at a funeral in West Texas; the death of a longtime Democratic state representative has drawn head honchos from Austin sniffing a chance to flip the seat. Among them is L.D. Sparks, a lobbyist scouting for a Republican replacement. A news clip of a local rancher bursting through flames to save a horse from a burning barn leads Sparks to military veteran Sonny Lamb, who with his wife, Lola, is struggling to hold onto his herd amid a devastating drought. Sparks sees "pure political gold" in the video and tells the dumbfounded Lambs he can get Sonny elected, casting the rancher's lack of experience as "a chance to write your own script." The plan works, and the bumbling and good-hearted Lamb suffers a few knocks while adjusting to his new life in Austin, where he eventually starts resisting his party's puppetmasters. Though the fable-like ending is a bit too transparently written for big-screen adaptation, Wright never loses sight of the dark consequences of all the political shenanigans. No one emerges unscathed in this rollicking satire.
