Texas Summer: A Novel

(Paperback)

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Harold Stevens is twelve years old, heading hell-bent for thirteen, away from the comfort of his mother's care to the realities of the world beyond. Grandfather would gladly initiate him into the world's ways, but his lessons are more prattle than practical. Harold's older friends dare him into danger and expose him to newand not always edifyingexperiences. But his real mentor is C.K., the twenty-three-year-old black hired hand on his father's farm.
Together they fish for the legendary catfish down at the local pond, dare bulls, pick gage from among the wild cactus, and carefully dry it and store it for future use. C.K. takes Harold with him when he run errands in town, and brings him into the mysterious black world beyond the railroad tracks. There Harold learns of C.K.'s big brother, "Big Nail" Emmet, doing time for murder, and of Big Nail's wife, Cora Lee. There is a fraying bond between the two brothers that Harold senses but cannot really fathom. Until one day the two brothers meet in a macabre, ritualistic dance of death.
Sensitive, understated, Texas Summer evokes a time and place with the same sensitivity one finds in Hemingway's Nick Adams stories.
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Reviews

"Terry Southern was a fine writer, and Texas Summer a shows him at his most acute."Larry McMurtry

"This coming-of-age valentine to the 50s Texas landscape has an understated, flat-spoken charm."Kirkus Reviews

Southern's sensitive coming-of-age novel faithfully evokes Texas red-dirt country in the 1950s.Publishers Weekly
"Terry Southern was a fine writer, and Texas Summer a shows him at his most acute."Larry McMurtry

"This coming-of-age valentine to the 50s Texas landscape has an understated, flat-spoken charm."Kirkus Reviews

Southern's sensitive coming-of-age novel faithfully evokes Texas red-dirt country in the 1950s.Publishers Weekly

Author Bio

Terry Southern is the author of several collections of stories, including "Red Dirt Marijuana"--the title story of which was the springboard for "Texas Summer"--as well as the now classic novels "The Magic Christian," "Flash and Filigree," and "Blue Movie." "Candy," coauthored with Mason Hoffenberg and published fifty years ago, is considered one of the satirical masterpieces of the last century. His screenwriting credits included "Easy Rider," "Dr. Strangelove," "The Loved One," and "Barbarella." He died in 1995.