A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State - God Save Texas

An excellent, thoughtful tour of Texas' great recent past and troubling current political climate. Also filled with very interesting historical tributes, tid bits and trivia. Should be required reading in every Texas high school senior government class.

I checked this book out from the library and read most of it in two days. I live in Texas and I'm one of the terrible people the author describes as being favorable to "Trumpland", the non-blue areas of Texas that basically aren't its urban areas and what the rest of the world associates with Texas. To cut to the chase, the author is from Texas but is one of those insufferable people that live in Austin and complain about Texas being conservative. Conservatives, according to this author, are the problem. He literally calls liberals reasonable and hip, while conservatives in Texas are wild, dumb, and racist. Go ahead and read the book if you like that view of our political climate, but I found it a little disingenuous to want to change the thing that's come to define Texas. He lives in Austin (or did) so he's one of those folks who wants Texas to look more like that city.

Yep, regulated, taxed, super hip and progressive like the states that everyone is leaving to move to Texas. It baffles me that the leftists who move here don't realize that. He also called Alex Jones Texas' main contribution to the media/political conversation. Liberals like to think Alex Jones is a bigger deal than he is because he fulfills all the negative stereotypes of the right. There are plenty of reasonable, hip, good conservatives Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin are all blue counties. Get over yourself, bud.

Once I was on a Southwest flight from Los Angeles to Austin. It was March and I was returning home from a business trip, but there were many Los Angelenos who were flying in to attend SXSW.

I was seated next to a minor producer of Hollywood movies. She was a lovely woman and we had a lively conversation that lasted the whole flight.

As we talked about our lives, it became clear that she was shocked that I would chose to live in Texas, and that my life was significantly different from the lives she supposed we Texans lead.

Which brings me to a common question my friends ask me. My family and I can live almost anywhere we want to... why in God's name do we live in Texas?

Consider this book a 344 page explanation of the same question. Of all the places to live, why live in Texas?

If you love Texas as I do, you'll love this book. If you're not a fan of Texas, you may leave just as confused as you began.

This is an ugly book.Wright reeks of arrogance and condescension.If you are a blue collar worker or an entrepreneur or,heaven forbid,a republican, you can count on scorn and ridicule from the bird-watching,sanctuary city loving,liberal.For Wright,life among the philistines is indeed difficult.

Perhaps better named "God Save Wright" as this book is all about him with Texas bits as background. This book just moved to #1 on my list of books that are simply awful.
It would have been best served had it had a removable coupon to mail in and get your money back.

For those of us from outside Texas, the state and its residents are idiosyncratic — often in a way we find charming, frequently puzzling, and sometimes downright crazy. As author Lawrence Wright observed, Texas often leaves the rest of the country saying, “Huh?”.

Wright has written a love letter to the state in which he was born, then left, and then to which he returned. His bias is liberal, although he finds humor in the foibles of politicians of all stripes, celebrates the diversity of the state’s geography, culture, and ethnicity, and makes the case that Texas in many ways is a window onto the future of the nation as a whole.

The degree of antagonism toward government is mind-bending for those of us who live in more liberal states. The state legislature meets only for 140 days every two years, and thus has to set a two year budget cobbled together at the last minute. (Texans could argue that other state legislatures are no better, and subject voters to this taxpayer-funded sausage-making exercise annually.)

Most entertaining are theTexas politicians profiled by Wright.

What other state has had a legislator who has had a vasectomy performed on the air?

The author tells us that Miriam Ferguson became the first female governor of Texas in the 1920s when her husband as governor was jailed for corruption. She campaigned against bilingual education, arguing, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas.”

Ted Cruz, to establish his NRA bonafides, ran an ad showing “making machine gun bacon” by cooking it on the barrel of a weapon he had heated through rapid firing.

Texas Governor Greg Abbot was paralyzed from the waist down when a tree fell on him while he was jogging. He won a $9 million judgement. But subsequently, as attorney general he supported measures capping pain-and-suffering damages in medical malpractice cases at $250,000.

When the ACLU demanded that a creche be removed from the capitol building, Governor Anne Richards observed, “It’s a shame because it’s about the only time we had three wise men in the capitol.”

When LBJ was called out on his false claim that he had an ancestor who died at the Alamo, he quickly corrected himself to say he meant that his great-grandfather had died at the Alamo Hotel in Eagle Pass, TX.

Although Texas is politically conservative, it makes an exception for Willy Nelson, who is adored even though he’s a pot-smoking lefty.

Visitors to Texas, myself included, are struck by the absence of zoning laws (it’s a state that loathes regulation, of course) and the ubiquity of pickup trucks (1/4 of all vehicles sold in the state).

Wright points out that Texas, which has some of the least restrictions on gun ownership, has a lower homicide rate than California and the District of Columbia which have much more restrictive gun legislation.

Texas’ economic growth, which has also fueled a population growth, is the envy of just about all other 49 states.

Does the book answer the question, “Would I want to live here?”. After reading God Save Texas, many will find compelling reasons to do so. Wright fondly describes the state’s often under-appreciated attractions. And there is enough diversity geographically and culturally for just about anybody to find a home. But considering what is arguably our most eccentric state, others will ask, “I wonder if I could adapt?”

Wherever you come out on the question, God Save Texas is an entertaining profile of the state and its inhabitants.

This book reads like a collection of vignettes hastily put together at the suggestion of Mr Wright's editor at The New Yorker. There is no attempt at analysis. It has more of a feeling of "let me tell you about this and now let me tell you about that because I've got to make this a full-length book." What a missed opportunity. In addition, I listened to the New York Times Book Review podcast about "God Save Texas" and attended Mr Wright's talk in Dallas when he was promoting it and he shared exactly word for word the same anecdotes, which are also provided in the book (people who are not from Texas don't like Texas, except when he tells them he's from Austin; his representative is a salesman 200+ miles away because of redistricting, and so on). The book feels lazily put together so I suppose it shouldn't come as a surprise that Mr. Wright didn't invest much time in presenting anecdotes on book tour that the audience wouldn't have heard before. Given the growing importance of Texas on the national scene (with an inflow from other states such as California and the growing profile of Beto O'Rourke, perhaps a future U.S. president), there would certainly be value in giving Americans a book that explains Texas. I would certainly have benefited from such a book when I moved to Texas not too long ago. Mr Wright's book isn't that book.

Not great. I have many connections to Texas so parts of the book that relate to those connections, or national implication of the Texas stories are mildly interesting but in general the book feels quite random to me. Surprised it showed up on any national best seller lists even fleetingly.

In particular, the "Sausage chapters" go into WAY too much current / legislative detail that attempt to paint a broader / more historical perspective but lost me in minutiae. I'd probably would move up to 3 stars without those 2 chapters.

The subtitle suggests this is a travel book, but it is one only in the same sense as John Gunther's (and Neal Peirce's later) jaunt across the United States. Or, given the author's credentials, those books by V. S. Naipaul wherein most of the action is reaction and inward reflections. Scenery and historical landmarks are described, but a bit sparingly. But it may be appropriate for Texas, which would consist of little more than monotonous bayous, deserts, dry mountain ranges, and cold high plains but for two phenomena, both magnified to outlandishness (business, especially oil, and politics). Perhaps because of its origins as an independent nation Texas has always set itself apart, if not exalted itself, continuing to the occasional modern blather about secession. While some may consider Texans' braggadocio to verge on the comical, the author's in-depth analysis of its politicians suggest a greater threat to the nation as a whole. The best description of them is comically frightening. Thus, one wonders why this well-traveled writer stays in Texas. His attempts to explain are fairly eloquent, even poetic, but still the conclusion may be that old habits die hard.
Texans, please do not bother to try and locate Captain K's house and come over and shoot him. I have known many of your kind and generally liked them a lot; plus Wright does not skimp on relating their good qualities, particularly friendliness and generosity. I have visited your state, albeit not since 1975, and found it appealing from Farwell to the Sabine River. At one time, and in living memory, their politics was considered quite progressive, but in a respectably conservative way. It would be nice of y'all reflected on that more than you seem to, outside the major urban centers.

Watched the last two episodes of the Looming Tower and then made the mistake of ordering audible.com God Saves Texas.
Omg it looks like I’ll be avoiding everybody until I’m done with it not to mention how many others I’ll totally annoy giving prompts to Mr. Wright.
This gentleman is not a Texas treasure rather he’s a treasure that belongs to our planet. I learn so much but end up feeling so ignorant for not knowing of what he writes and I’ve lived in San Antonio 75 years so far.
That you sir for another feast of knowledge you have given to us. Bravo Bravo Bravo

I just finished Wright's new book (God Save Texas). I was very disappointed.
It's not much more than a travelogue, with a lot of gossip about the people he
knows and (more importantly) all the people who know him, from artists and
(fellow) musicians to local dignitaries and colorful characters. He name-drops
a lot, especially his own name, and devotes a whole chapter (the last one, of
course) to his burial plot, which is already reserved, since as a native son in
good standing (he won the Pulitzer Prize for one of his many books) he and
his wife are now entitled to be interred in the Texas State Cemetery (which I
visited two years ago, when Naomi and I went to Austin to help Heather and
Roee relocate), where only the Greatest Texans (Barbara Jordan, Stephen
Austin, Gov. & Mrs. Connally, and the greatest of them all, Longhorns coach
Darrell Royal) reside in eternal glory. You get the idea. I did learn a few
things from his monumental exercise in vanity and self-congratulation.
They are as follows:

1. The Alamo is in San Antonio. I had no idea.

2. Sam Houston was a great man, which is true, even by today's PC standards.
He married a native American, opposed slavery as well as secession, bore up
bravely under fire, being injured multiple times in combat, and even more so in
opposition to his political enemies, until he died in 1861, on the eve of civil war,
heart-broken and convinced that Texas was sure to follow him to the grave.
Which might not have been a bad idea, then or now. Whether they'd get a
spot in the State Cemetery is another story, although if he's not too busy at
the Nobel Prize ceremony, perhaps Wright will intervene on their behalf.

3. The world's largest convenience store, Buc-ee, is in New Braunfels.

4. There's a distinction between two levels of culture in the state: Level 1,
which is about hunting, hunting dogs, hunting rifles, hunting permits, BBQ,
and Wahoo in general, and Level 2, which is about the opera, the ballet,
Shakespeare, H.W. Brands (another close friend of his, the biographer of
Ben Franklin, Woodrow Wilson, TR, FDR, Andrew Jackson, Aaron Burr,
and many others, who teaches at UT), and himself. If I didn't know any
better (sic), I'd swear this was borrowed if not stolen from Herbert Gans,
who distinguished between high-brow, low-brow and middle-brow, with
the middle section taken out, or from Gans' elite (and elitist) forbears,
such as Clement Greenberg and Dwight MacDonald, In other words,
plagiarism in all but name--and outmoded, to boot, since (as Jack
Gould observed, long ago) the Beatles erased those distinctions,
all by themselves, the minute they started using Lydian modes in
their ballads, which are now regarded (for other, but entirely valid
reasons) as on a par with Schubert's Lieder, or anything you care
to name. But I guess Texass hasn't gotten the memo yet, or else
Wright is hopelessly obsolete. Perhaps both.

That was it. I'd demand a refund, but I figure he needs the Darrell royalties,
so I'll be charitable, and generous, just like Sam Houston, or the victims of
Hurricane Harvey, not to mention the devastating Galveston flood, in 1900.
About which, the more said the better--but you won't find it here, or anything
resembling serious reflection and insight. For that you need the three wise
men (Bedichek, Dobie and Webb), T.R. Fehrenbach, Marilyn McAdams
Sibley, and mahy others who have devoted their lives to understanding
Texas, as opposed to exploiting it, bragging about it, or bad-mouthing it.
If I'm inclined toward the last of these, it must be because the other two
categories have made me that way. I promise to do better, by avoiding
such nonsense in the future, until I restore my panhandler's equilibrium.
In the meantime, all I can say is, God save Mr. Wright . . . from himself.

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TEXAS POLITICS/SOCIAL SCIENCES
Lawrence Wright
God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State
Alfred A. Knopf
Hardcover, 978-0-5255-2010-4, (also available as an e-book, on Audible, and as a large-print paperback), 368 pgs., $27.95
April 17, 2018

In a former life, I was a paralegal for an international law firm in Dallas. During a conversation with a lawyer from Philadelphia, he told me something astonishing. According to him, neither does Pennsylvania require years of state history in school curriculum, nor do automobile manufacturers create Pennsylvania-edition SUVs. He’d never experienced anything like the Texas identity juggernaut and wanted me to explain it. I’m going to send him an email recommending Lawrence Wright’s new book.

Wright focuses his razor-sharp lens inward and on his home state in God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State. Austinite Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker, playwright, screenwriter, novelist, and author of ten books of nonfiction, including Pulitzer Prize winner The Looming Tower (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). God Save Texas is history lesson, cultural criticism, reporting, and memoir. By turns funny and fond, disgusted and resigned, Wright defaults to weary exasperation, but he can’t deny that only Texas feels like home.

God Save Texas is written in first person, rare for Wright. When he references “my friend Steve,” he is referring to beloved Texas writer Stephen Harrigan, with whom he has been close friends for decades and frequently debates questions of Texas’s hegemonic personality. Wright claims you can get a crash course in Texan-ness by perusing the merchandise at Buc-ee’s, which embodies Texas archetypes — “a low-brow society … that finds its fullest expression in a truck stop on the interstate.” This is harsh. Wright names the usual culprits: rugged individualism, simple patriotism, isolationism, nostalgia for a past that mostly never was, insubordination, braggadocio. “It’s an irony that the figure who most embodies the values people associate with [Texas],” Wright notes, “is a narcissistic Manhattan billionaire now sitting in the Oval Office.”

Wright accuses Texas of “[nurturing] an immature political culture” that has harmed not only itself, but the entire country, because “what happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation,” from textbooks to undemocratic redistricting schemes to the Tea Party to Alex Jones. Texas simultaneously reflects frontier myths and predicts the future. Thankfully, as Wright admits, the old stereotypes are softening around the edges with new stereotypes — hipsters, musicians, technology titans, and a growing artistic community. Texas has plenty to be proud of, and cautious optimism is excused.

Wright interjects personal anecdotes to enliven the facts and figures, sometimes approaching stream of consciousness. If you live in Texas and are sentient, then you won’t find surprises in God Save Texas. If you haven’t been paying attention, it’s a fine primer on policy, and it makes a collective impact gathered in one volume.

I admire Wright’s work and his brain. He’s a smart guy with a dry humor and a thoughtful, precise manner, though he meanders periodically here. The conclusion is disappointing because there isn’t one; I wanted a grand summation of the thesis, but God Save Texas ends abruptly.

Wright is conflicted, so why does he live here? For the same reason I do. Like Wright, I have left and returned. I have tried to be someone else, somewhere else, but those places aren’t home. And to paraphrase from Attica Locke’s Bluebird, Bluebird, Texas is mine, too, and I refuse to surrender it.

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life.

Wright is a master of the written word. This book is important for people who like to stay informed. Put aside cultural or political prejudices about Texas long enough to understand why the state is a bellweather for what is to come in the U.S. It's already happening in the Lone Star state. As in his other books, Wright has done exhaustive research on his subject. His style is witty and accessible. Someone bored by facts may become impatient with some passages, but a curious reader will soak in every word. It took Wright to pen this book to persuade me (someone who tries to ignore Texas) to buy the book and to be captured by it.

I don't care for his negative comments about how the state has developed regarding racial issues and the Confederacy, although I fundamentally agree with him, but people live within their times. They can't live before or after. This book teaches the reader about Texas' crucial role in this country, and in the world, aligns with this thought - entities can move forward or backward, in spite of their past. Texas has done this. People who are not observing the state just don't get this.

I can offer three great reasons to read Lawrence Wright’s book titled, God Save Texas: A Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State. First, the writing will delight those readers who enjoy well written prose. Second, Wright gives readers with no familiarity with Texas or those who know the state well a great sense of a big place that the author loves. Finally, this is a personal story that describes an intentional life and decisions to remain in the place he proudly calls home. Thirty years ago a transplanted Texan told me that when his children were born, he placed a pot of Texas dirt under the delivery bed so that the children could claim forever that they were born on Texas soil. After reading Wright’s book, I now understand a little better something I had considered very odd.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

The refutation of Texas stereotypes is the principal business of GOD SAVE TEXAS. And Lawrence Wright, who was raised in Abilene and Dallas and lives in Austin, absolutely nails these stereotypes near the start of his book. In doing so, he visits Buc-ee’s, a truck stop that claims to be the largest convenience store in the world. There… “an aspiring Texan can get fully outfitted not only with the clothing but also the cultural and philosophical stances that embody the Texas stereotypes—cowboy individualism, a kind of wary friendliness, super-patriotism combined with defiance of all government authority, a hair-trigger sense of grievance, nostalgia for an ersatz past that is largely an artifact of Hollywood—a lowbrow society, in other words…”

In refuting such stereotypes, Wright produces a book with 14 chapters, each delving into a particular aspect of this not-simple state. The chapter “A Tale of Three Wells”, for example, examines the colorful history of the oil and gas industries in Texas and the immense wealth these industries generate. The chapter “Big D” recounts the checkered history of Dallas, which Wright feels became a more humane place as the city regrouped after the trauma of the Kennedy assassination. Meanwhile, “Among the Confederates” captures the sentimental tug of Texas history through a cemetery—sort of an Arlington for the Lone Star State—where many famous Texans are buried.

In writing these chapters, Wright, for the most part, eschews the linear. Instead, his modus operandi is the jump from this to that, a technique that layers and enriches his material. To illustrate this approach, I direct my kindle to “The City of the Violet Crown”, which is about life in Austin. Here, the background of this chapter is Wright’s many decades and solid roots in Austin. But its narrative meanders from… “the blue dot in the red state” to Governor Abbott mocking “the People’s Republic of Austin” to “dogs, bars, and food trucks” to birders in Austin and the state’s “600 varieties of bird species” to “Ladybird Lake” which reminds Wright of “Thomas Eakins’s paintings of the oarsmen on the Schuylkill River” to Dell Technologies and Whole Foods, which were founded in Austin, and so on. This chapter also has stories about Austin residents Matthew McConaughey and Willie Nelson and reviews the sordid actions of the mass murderer Charles Whitman, the infamous “Texas Tower Sniper” who killed on the UT Austin campus.

Wright also devotes two chapters to Texas politics. In one of these chapters, “Sausage Makers”, he observes: “Fairly considered, the Texas legislature is more functional than the U.S. Congress, and more genteel that the House of Commons, but a recurrent crop of crackpots and ideologues has fed the state’s reputation for aggressive know-nothingism and proudly retrograde politics.”

Wright gets the final word. “Because Texas is a part of almost everything in modern America—the South, the West, the Plains, Hispanic and immigrant communities, the border, the divide between the rural areas and cities—what happens here tends to disproportionately affect the rest of the nation. Illinois and New Jersey may be more corrupt, Kansas and Louisiana more dysfunctional, but they don’t bear the responsibility for being the future."

Rounded up and recommended.

I very much enjoyed this book, which is the first I have read by Lawrence Wright. It was a much more personal book than I expected, based on what I had heard about his other books about the World Trade Center attack, and Scientology.

Wright covers Texas history, politics culture and music in the course of a meandering book about a state he clearly loves. Given Mr. Wright has some musical training, and plays in a band, I was hoping the sections of Texas musical legends like Roy Orbison, Willie Nelson and Bob Willis had been longer and more detailed.

But I have to say, I enjoyed every page of this book. It can only be faulted for not being longer. It is in the end, a short book, about a big state, so you have to expect that a lot of stuff was left out.

Highly Recommended.

I really liked this book. Wright honestly investigates what Texans hold dear, and by giving in-depth history and background to Texan proclivities, he also makes the state and its citizens understandable - whether you like them or not. Since we moved to Texas 2 1/2 years ago, I frequently encounter my Midwestern friends' biases against Texas, and this book will help me in those conversations as I explain why I have found a comfortable place and people in Texas. For sure, Texas isn't for everyone, but for some of us, it's exactly what we've been looking for. Thank you, Lawrence Wright, for writing this book!

This is a very well-written and enjoyable read about the Great State of Texas. I have lived in Texas nearly 20 years and Wright does a very good job of capturing its essence and contradictions quite well. As always, Wright's writing style is very smooth and flows well. I really enjoyed the book.

Should give it none. Thank goodness I got this from the library. By page 16, he was actually bashing blue-colllar workers, denigrating our President and otherwise being insufferable. He talks about wanting to live in NYC; my advice is don't let the screen door hit you on the way out. This sort of trash is getting so old. Trump won, jobs at record GDP 4% RNK changing. #walkaway.

Being a Texan who follows the meanderings of our Legislature and other news, I must say that some of the information in this book is not new to me. But Lawrence Wright is such an entertaining writer that he puts a new spin on it.

This is an excellent book for anyone wanting to understand Texas and its people, politicians, musicians and what have you. It even includes the infamous Matthew McConaughey naked bongo session story (Wright happened to live across the street from the actor when it happened). I learned a lot from this book, with quite a few chuckles thrown in. Great for out-of-state folks trying to figure out what the hell is going on down here.

Excellent book, really enjoyed his perspective and his personal turmoil on how he views Texas, and how Texas can be looked at as a microcosm or America. Great read. Wright always delivers and next to krakauer, my favorite non fiction writer.

I've bought more political books since the 2016 election than I have in my entire life!!!! We Texans take politics seriously. So when a friend recommended "God Save Texas..." as a change of pace, I ordered it that day. Love reading about my home state...Interesting, witty and the author kinda' leans a little to the left...my kinda' book.

Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower is a masterpiece. This book, not so much. Wright is a hard-left liberal who believes all conservatives are bigots, racists, sexists, etc. He repeatedly emphasizes this position throughout this work. I'm disappointed that I wasted my time with it.