The first time I had my picture in a newspaper was when I was in the second grade. Terry Allen, the love of my life at age eight, and I were photographed in Mrs. Grandstaff's second grade classroom at the chalk board for having read the most books over the summer between our first and second grade school years. And, although Terry Allen disappeared from my life some 40 years ago, my love of reading has survived to the present day.
I have an insatiable appetite for knowledge and always have been possessed by this urge to forever be trying to stuff more and more information into my pea-sized brain. Even now, as I struggle to deal with middle-age and the reality that there isn't all that much time left to do all of the things I want to do before the end comes for one Robert T. Gupton, I find myself constantly devouring newspapers and magazines and books of all varieties to learn whatever I can at practically every spare moment. Computers are the current craze and I have fallen head over heels into this new world of instant gratification for satiating my desires to learn more about a wide spectrum of interests that I have. My love of music and movies and novels is never far from my brain's thought processes when I can get my fingers on a computer. I'm constantly in search of information about new books and CD's and films that I would want to be among the first to see or purchase. It's an addiction, I am well aware of, but hey, who is it hurting, huh?
In the world of novels that I have long wanted to be a part of, there are a handful of writers that I follow sort of like a groupie tags along with a rock band. Although I have never actually met any of these writers (with the exception of Ron Rozelle, a Brazoswood High School creative writing teacher who put on a writing seminar several years ago in Lake Jackson that I participated in) I keep in touch with each of them via the worldwide web. In addition to Ron Rozelle (who, along with Bill Crider of Alvin, are Brazoria County writers whose books I often read), my favorite novelists include (among the living) James Lee Burke, Pat Conroy, James Ellroy, Larry McMurtry, Dennis Lehane, James Carlos Blake, Cormac McCarthy, Melinda Haynes, Stuart Woods, John Irving and John Sandford. My home library has expanded so much in recent years that there is no longer any room on my shelves to add any new books. I have incorporated the use of many cardboard boxes and plastic storage bins to keep my collection of books in and will soon have to come up with new ideas about storage if I continue buying books at the present pace. My wife suggests I take a few boxes of books with me the next time I go to one of the many book sales I attend, selling back books I have already read in exchange for new ones that I haven't. Leave it to Peggy to always come up with the bright ideas, but unfortunately her common sense has not transferred to me through mere marriage. I am my mother's son and her "packrat" ways are what I inherited instead. Verna Mae never threw anything away and neither do I.
Several of my favorite writers have been absent from the book scene in recent years and it has left me wondering if they were still among the living. Recently I got good news in that area when I learned through my infatuation with the internet that, not only are Pat Conroy, James Carlos Blake and James Ellroy still living, each has a new book due to be released in the not too distant future. James Lee Burke's working title of "In The Valley Of Ancient Rain Gods" for his latest novel has been shortened to simply "Rain Gods" when it hit book stores today. The paring of Burke's titles also occurred earlier this year when his 1993 novel "In The Electric Mist With Confederate Dead" came to the silver screen as a new movie titled "In The Electric Mist." And while the arrival today of Burke's latest novel is excellent news for someone like myself who simply cannot get enough of Burke's writing, my hunger for new novels from my A-list of writers was thown another bone when I found out that Ellroy has a new novel expected to be published on September 22, 2009, and that both Pat Conroy and James Carlos Blake are deep into their respective next novels.
"Blood's A Rover" (a photo of the working book cover is above) will follow two novels I extremely enjoyed, "American Tabloid" and "The Cold Six Thousand," as the final volume of Ellroy's American Underworld Trilogy. I was drawn to the first two works of this trilogy primarily because of my interest in the conspiracy theories hovering around the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy when I was in the first grade. Ellroy, the author of novels adapted to major motion picture releases like "L.A. Confidential" and "The Black Dahlia," incorporates short sentences and clipped dialogue from his characters in "American Tabloid" and its sequel, "The Cold Six Thousand." His writing style is unusual to someone such as myself who reads so many novels and, as a longtime novelist wannabe, compares the various styles of a number of authors. But I found his writing style appealing in his previous works. It fits the subject matter, which involves fictional CIA operatives led down a road of deceit and lies from their higher ups who eventually have the lead characters planning and following through on the assassinations of both Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr.
In "Blood's A Rover," America is exploding in the summer of 1968 when Ellroy's new novel begins. The forthcoming novel's three protagonists are a Klan-raised, Yale-educated FBI agent infiltrating black-militant groups at J. Edgar Hoover's racist behest and obsessed with a leftist shadow figure, an ex-cop and heroin runner paving the way for the mob's casinos in the Dominican Republic, and a young L.A. wheelman for divorce lawyers within tantalizing reach of the men who killed the Kennedys and MLK and took us to the threshold of Watergate. I can't wait for "Blood's A Rover" to hit the bookstands in the fall.
Ellroy himself describes the new novel in the following fashion: "It's a ghastly tale of political malfeasance and imperialistic bad juju from 1968 to 1972." He states that he will steer clear of the Watergate scandal "because Watergate bores me." Let me tell you for sure, James Ellroy's writing will never bore you. He is among the nation's best mystery writers.
Another of my favorite mystery writers is James Carlos Blake, winner of the 1997 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction for his novel "In The Rogue Blood." That was the first novel of Blake's that I read. And after reading a couple more I was hooked. I have read everything he has published with the lone exception of "The Friends Of Pancho Villa" (because it is written in Spanish). "The Killings Of Stanley Ketchel," Blake's 2005 historical novel about early 1900s boxer Stanley Ketchel, his unfortunate killings of two boxers in the ring and Ketchel's own eventual murder at a young age, was the last book Blake published and I have really missed him over the past four years.
James Carlos Blake, born May 26, 1947, in Tampico, Mexico, as a third-generation Mexican descended from American, English, and Irish ancestors--including a British pirate who was executed in Vera Cruz, Mexico--received his elementary education in Brownsville, Texas, and graduated from high school in Miami, Florida. He earned his BA and MA degrees from the University of South Florida in Tampa. Blake was married and divorced three times before he was forty but has since remained single.
Most of Blake's novels to date have been set between the mid-nineteenth-century and the latter 1930s, and several of them (like in James Ellroy's novels) have featured historical figures as their protagonists. It came as welcome news to this huge James Carlos Blake fan when I read this week that Blake is at work on a large-scale novel based on his family forebears.
Also hard at work on a new novel is Pat Conroy, the author of many of my favorite works in both fiction and nonfiction. For a long time I would tell anyone who asked me who my favorite writer is that Pat Conroy was without a doubt at the top of my list. I read six of his books and graded each of them very highly . . . and then he seemed to fall off the face of the earth. I have recently read that Conroy was involved in marital problems and dealing with a severe case of writer's block. Plus he has made so much money from Hollywood for the many novels he has written that have been made into films. But just this week I learned that a new novel with the working title "South Of Broad" is expected to be published later this summer. The new novel will be set in Charleston, South Carolina, and will mark a return to Conroy's more predictable writing style, following his 2002 nonfiction release, "My Losing Season." In 1999 Conroy published "The Pat Conroy Cookbook: Recipes Of My Life," which I left on the book store shelves. I'm more a fan of his works of fiction.
Tommy Lee Jones, pictured below at right at the Cannes Film Festival several years ago with the author of the movie Jones directed and starred in, "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada," has starred in movies and a couple television miniseries that were adapted by film directors from novels written by a number of my favorite authors. Jones, a native of San Saba, Texas, who once roomed with former Vice President Al Gore at Harvard University, has appeared in "Lonesome Dove" as Texas Ranger Woodrow Call in the TV version of Larry McMurtry's novel, starred as death row inmate Gary Gilmore in his Emmy-winning performance in the TV drama "The Executioner's Song" from the nonfiction work by Norman Mailer, was one of the lead actors in the Oscar-winning movie "No Country For Old Men" based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name, and most recently brought James Lee Burke's rural Louisiana police investigator Dave Robicheaux to the big screen in the movie "In The Electric Mist." Alec Baldwin portrayed Robicheaux in the 1996 movie "Heaven's Prisoners."
The magnet that continually draws me back to a particular novelist's work appears to be the recurring main character. Louisiana novelist James Lee Burke has a pair of these. My personal taste leans toward the New Iberia investigator Dave Robicheaux who has starred in seventeen of Burke's novels over the years, starting with "The Neon Rain" and continuing right up to 2008's "Swan Peak." I have read less than half of the Robicheaux novels but have found them among the books I am most likely to check out of the public library and search for at local book sales. Dave and his sidekick, Clete Purcell, are very entertaining in each of Burke's novels that they appear in. The duo both served time in Vietnam and were partners on the New Orleans police force before Robicheaux kicked his battle with alcoholism and joined the New Iberia sheriff's department, while his buddy Clete became a private investigator who always seems to pop up in the crux of the storyline in the Robicheaux novels.
Burke has also written four books in the Billy Bob Holland series of novels, and his latest book "Rain Gods" brings back a character from one of Burke's early novels, "Lay Down My Sword and Shield," from 1971. "Rain Gods" features small town Texas sheriff Hackberry Holland, a cousin of his established character Billy Bob Holland. I can't wait to read "Rain Gods," which was supposed to be released to book stores today, July 14, 2009. Hackberry Holland is the sheriff of a sleepy Texas town near the Mexican border, but in Burke's new novel Hackberry finds his downshifted lifestyle torn asunder when he discovers the bodies of nine illegal aliens buried in a shallow grave behind a church. The investigative trail leads to a troubled Iraq veteran who knows something about the killings, and his country music singing girlfriend. Both are on the run from various lowlifes who want to make sure they don't tell anyone what they know.
Burke, who once lived in Texas and has written several novels that take place in my home state, possesses a writing style that I find most enjoyable to read. His novels are true page-turners. His narrative pace, like that of James Carlos Blake, tends to transform my mind to another stratosphere when I am in my zone, the storyline floating off the pages of their books like watching a movie in my head. These three James's (Burke, Ellroy and Blake) have, in recent years, gravitated to the top of my personal list of authors whose works I most want to read. Just like with my taste in music, I have a tendency to remain in my comfort zone. I tend to buy CD's recorded by the musical artists I have been listening to for the majority of my life. And when considering new books to read, I also tend to go back to the same authors time and time again. And, thus far, none of these novelists have let me down. So this behavioral pattern will continue unbridled, at least until some new writers catch my attention. If any of you reading this blog have any suggestions or would simply like to mention which novelists you enjoy reading, add a comment to this blog with your personal recommendations.
Two of Burke's Dave Robicheaux novels have been adapted to film with a pair of Hollywood stars with Texas ties portraying the Louisiana investigator on screen. Alec Baldwin starred in the 1996 movie "Heaven's Prisoners" and Tommy Lee Jones more recently brought Dave Robicheaux to the big screen in this year's "In The Electric Mist." Another native Texan, Kris Kristofferson, starred in a movie many years ago that was based on James Lee Burke's novel "Two For Texas," which was about a pair of Louisiana convicts who escape from their brutal prison guard while being forced to work in the swamps and run away to Texas where they get embroiled in the middle of the war between the Texians and the Mexicans and fight at San Jacinto with Sam Houston. I have been reading more of Burke's earlier works the last few years and have found that a lot of those books have the Lone Star state as the setting. Burke was born in Houston but spent most of his childhood on the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. He received his BA and MA from Missouri-Columbia University after obtaining his bachelors degree from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. I highly recommend Burke's novels for anyone unaware of his existence in the literary world. But, like with James Carlos Blake's novels, a warning must be extended to anyone who doesn't like excessive violence in their reading. That appears to be a common thread in the variety of novelists I prefer to read, which probably says something about my own psyche (and could be a first step in my seeking professional help one day). Blood and guts is a prime ingredient for a good novel in the world according to Gup. And like with the works of Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry, readers are going to get it in brutal excess from James Lee Burke, James Ellroy and James Carlos Blake.
I could kill hours simply wandering around at used book sales, fingering through what is available, usually priced at 50 cents for paperbacks and a dollar for hardbacks. I have gotten hooked on John Sandford's novels about Lucas Davenport and have bought quite a few of his books in the "Prey" series at these venues. "Winter Prey" was the first of this series of novels that I read many years ago and I was hooked from the get go. "Rules Of Prey" kicked off the series of Minneapolis police investigator Lucas Davenport mysteries following newspaper journalist John Camp's move into the world of writing successful novels using the pen name John Sandford. Camp had won the Pulitzer Prize in newspaper feature stories prior to becoming a novelist.
Sandford's latest offering is "Rough Country" (book cover pictured above at right), which is about a new character Sandford has created named Virgil Flowers. I have read many of his Lucas Davenport books in the "Prey Series" (which includes "Naked Prey," "Mortal Prey" and "Eyes Of Prey" among numerous others that have found their way to the bestseller's list) and am a newcomer to his Kidd Series of novels. I am currently reading Sandford's "The Hanged Man's Song" (2003), which is the fourth novel in the Kidd Series. My personal collection of John Sandford's works has grown rapidly in recent years through the purchases I've made at book sales, with my goal to complete the "Prey" series for my own library and eventually get to read them all. A goal I will probably never accomplish.
Despite my speaking highly of a handful of novelists who hail from the Northeast, the bulk of books I read are penned by authors from the Southeast and my home state of Texas. Pat Conroy of South Carolina, John Grisham of Mississippi, Cormac McCarthy of Tennessee, James Carlos Blake of Florida, and James Lee Burke of Louisiana rank in my Top 10 of favorite novelists who are still living and actively writing. It is difficult to say who my favorite writer from Texas is. I would have to place Larry McMurtry at the top of that list, primarily because he has lived in the Lone Star State his entire life and has published so many excellent novels that I have gained sheer enjoyment from reading. His novel "Lonesome Dove," published in 1985, took me what seemed like an eternity to finish because I am such a slow reader and always seem to have two or three novels going at the same time. But "Lonesome Dove," winner of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, is definitely among my most loved novels. And the television miniseries based on McMurtry's book is also among my all-time favorite TV shows. Starring several of my favorite movie stars (Robert Duvall, Tommy Lee Jones and Danny Glover), "Lonesome Dove" when airing on TV was truly an event for big fans of McMurtry such as myself.
Larry McMurtry was born in Archer City, Texas, on June 3, 1936, and grew up on a ranch outside Archer City, which is the model for the fictional town of Thalia that appears in much of his fiction. He earned his bachelors degree in 1958 from North Texas State University, and his masters degree from Rice University in Houston in 1960. So he is the purest Texan among those authors I have tabbed my favorites.
Several of his novels have been brought to the big screen, highly acclaimed by movie critics and fans alike. His 1961 novel "Horseman, Pass By" was adapted for film as "Hud," starring Paul Newman. His 1966 novel "The Last Picture Show" also was adapted to the film of the same name. His 1975 novel "Terms Of Endearment" became a movie as well. The Academy Awards seems to love Larry McMurtry. Oscars were handed out to actors like Patricia Neal, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman and Jack Nicholson for their supporting roles in these three films based on McMurtry novels. McMurtry himself received an Oscar and Golden Globe in 2006 (which he shared with his girlfriend Diana Ossana) for Best Adapted Screenplay for the highly controversial movie "Brokeback Mountain."
John Grisham (pictured above) has had the majority of his novels turned into movies. I'm a huge fan of Grisham's and can boast the possession of 20 of his novels in my home library. "The Associate" is Grisham's current release, having been made available to the reading public in January of this year. It rests near the top of the list of books I intend to purchase in the near future. "The Innocent Man," the first foray by Grisham into the world of nonfiction, is the most recent book of his that I have bought and "The Last Juror" is the last work of fiction of John's that I have actually read. And I think I would have to name "The Last Juror" as my favorite of Grisham's novels, primarily because the protagonist in the book is a young newspaper editor/publisher/owner that I could really relate to, based on my decade-long journalism career spent mostly working for weekly newspapers. Ten of Grisham's novels have been adapted for the silver screen, from "The Firm" starring Tom Cruise and Gene Hackman, to "A Time To Kill" starring Texan Matthew McConaughey and Sandra Bullock, and "The Pelican Brief" starring Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington.
Both Grisham and McMurtry should be wealthy enough by now, when compiling the cash they have collected from book sales and movie rights, that neither should ever have to work again. But, lucky for their huge fans such as myself, both continue to churn out books that I and millions of others like me can't wait to read.
The motion picture industry has also been very kind to a man I rate as my favorite living author. Pat Conroy, who currently lives on Fripp Island off the coast of South Carolina, has had four of his novels adapted as movies. The last book of Conroy's I bought was "My Losing Season," a work of nonfiction written about Conroy playing college basketball for The Citadel on a team comprised of military academy students that did not win very many games. That book was released in 2002 and I, as a huge fan of Conroy's work, have been waiting seven years for his next offering. In a 2007 interview, Conroy stated that he is almost finished with his next book, noting that it will mark a return to the same dysfunctional characters he's become known for in his novels. The new novel, with the working title "South Of Broad," is scheduled for a summer 2009 release. In the interview, Conroy remarked that he has already written more than 700 pages of "South Of Broad," which will be set in Charleston, South Carolina. I truly loved his last novel, 1995's "Beach Music," and can't wait for "South Of Broad" to hit the bookstores, hopefully sooner than later.
Pat Conroy, born October 26, 1945, in Atlanta, was inducted into the South Carolina Hall of Fame on March 18, 2009. His novels "The Prince Of Tides," "The Great Santini," "The Lords Of Discipline" and "Beach Music" all rank in my Top 25 favorite books I have read in my life. I also read his 1972 biographical novel, "The Water Is Wide," which was turned into the movie "Conrack," starring Jon Voight.
On a rather sad note, I had to say so long earlier this year to a pair of writers I thought so very much of. John Updike died in January at the age of 76 and Horton Foote passed away at the advanced age of 92 in March. I will surely miss reading their books and viewing movies that they either wrote screenplays for or were based on plays and novels the two great American writers had penned.
Horton Foote was born in nearby Wharton, Texas, and wrote about visiting his cousins in East Columbia when he was a child residing in the neighboring county. Academy Awards were a part of Foote's impressive resume as well. He won his frst Oscar for writing the screenplay for Harper Lee's outstanding novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird." A second Oscar sat on Foote's mantel as well, for penning the screenplay to "Tender Mercies," which Robert Duvall won his only Academy Award for as best actor in a lead role. One of the most memorable movies I have ever seen was "The Trip To Bountiful," written by Foote. That film has special meaning for me because it is one I rented from the video store and watched with my mother and father. Both of my parents rarely took the time to sit down and actually view a movie from beginning to end. They were always too busy. But Horton Foote was a personal friend of my father's older brother, Thurman Gupton, and his wife Gladys. I have heard stories of Horton Foote and his wife visiting West Columbia in the home of Judge and Mrs. Gupton, and there was talk around West Columbia many years ago that Robert Duvall had visited historic East Columbia along the banks of the Brazos River to scope things out for a possible movie shoot (that never came to fruition). The project Duvall was working on was in association with Horton Foote, who had spent a lot of time in East Columbia in his childhood days.
Lung cancer claimed John Updike in mid-January of this year. He published his first novel in 1959 and wrote 25 more, most recently "The Widows Of Eastwick" in 2008 (a sequel to Updike's "The Witches Of Eastwick" that was made into a popular movie starring Jack Nicholson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Susan Sarandon and Cher). I have read a number of Updike's works and agree when reading statements in the press like "Few contemporary writers have rivaled Updike in output or quality of work sustained over a career that spanned half a century."
Updike was born in Shillington, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Harvard University. He lived in Massachusetts the majority of his adult life. He wrote virtually a book a year, starting with "Rabbit, Run" in 1960 (there were four "Rabbit" novels in all and I possess each of them in my home library) and finishing with "The Widows Of Eastwick." The most recent John Updike novel I devoured was 2007's "Terrorist," which was very timely in our post-911 world. Among my favorite Updike novels are "Brazil" (1994) and "In The Beauty Of The Lillies" (1996). In March of this year the Knopf Publishing Group released posthumously a collection of poems that Updike wrote during the last seven years of his life and put together by the author only weeks before he died. "Endpoint And Other Poems" by John Updike is now available at book stores.
