Off Course
I never knew my father, a decorated World War II pilot who died before I was born. But a trek at age 67 to the site where his airplane crashed brought me closer to him than I’d ever dared hope.
Writer-at-large Stephen Harrigan is a longtime contributor to Texas Monthly whose work has also appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic, the New York Times Book Review, and other national publications. He was a finalist for the 2015 National Magazine Awards in the commentary category for his writing at Texas Monthly. The following year, he won the Texas Institute of Letters’ Edwin “Bud” Shrake Award for his Texas Monthly story “Off Course.” He has also received the TIL’s Lon Tinkle Award for lifetime achievement, the Texas Medal of Arts Award, and the Texas Book Festival’s Texas Writer Award, and he is a member of the Texas Literary Hall of Fame.
Harrigan is the author of twelve books of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-winning novels The Gates of the Alamo and Remember Ben Clayton; Big Wonderful Thing, a history of Texas; and The Eye of the Mammoth, a career-spanning collection of his essays, many of which were written for Texas Monthly. Harrigan’s latest book is the novel The Leopard Is Loose. He is also a screenwriter who has written many movies for television. He lives in Austin.
I never knew my father, a decorated World War II pilot who died before I was born. But a trek at age 67 to the site where his airplane crashed brought me closer to him than I’d ever dared hope.
Passing through a desolate stretch of North Texas, I set an anchor in the sea of time.
A culinary obsession that began decades ago in my grandmother’s kitchen sent me on a quest through Central Texas (and way beyond) for kolaches—not the best ones but the ones that would lead me to myself.
An early castaway described Padre Island as “a wretched, barren sandbank.” It’s better known today as the Gold Coast of Texas, but its identity is still rooted in wildness and age-old solitude.
A tiger, a zoo, a terrifying death.
God created Texas, and then He created people who would love it.
In the late sixties, the Capital City was just as thrilling, drug-addled, pompous, and aimless as you’ve heard. Especially if you came from the provinces.
Forty years later, I still can’t forget sitting in a darkened theater to watch “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” with the movie’s leading man.
A $500 million restoration seeks to reverse almost two centuries of cultural and physical neglect at the most popular historic site in Texas. There’s never been more of a concerted effort to make things right.
An escape in 1950 inspired my novel. The wildly different public reactions show how much our relationship to animals has changed.
When I started writing for Texas Monthly in 1973, I didn’t expect it to last very long. But it’s still here, five decades later.
Over one hundred movies later, a virtual movie club learned some surprising things about classic movies—and about friendship in dark times.
A recent tribute in Archer City gave Texans an overdue opportunity to pay their respects to their state’s greatest writer.
Passing through a desolate stretch of North Texas, I set an anchor in the sea of time.
I shape clay not to hone the skill but to escape a day job that’s all about honing. Like the philosopher Laozi, I find the value of my handiwork comes from what’s not there.
As monuments to slaveholders, Confederate soldiers, and Texas Rangers disappear across the state, we’re being forced to reconsider what should be honored, what should be commemorated, and what it’s time to let go of.
In the early twentieth century, long-simmering tensions in South Texas erupted into a grim and brutal race war.
After breaking away from Mexico, the combative Republic of Texas took its fight against Native Americans to the heart of Comanchería, led by a group of militiamen who called themselves Rangers.
As the Civil War violently divided the nation, Texan turned against Texan.
The shuttle age commences, becomes routine, and draws to a close, while Mars beckons.
Now it’s Woody Harrelson’s turn to play our thirty-sixth president on-screen. Why can’t we get enough of a man once regarded as utterly devoid of glamour?
In this exclusive excerpt from Stephen Harrigan’s forthcoming history of Texas, the first Spanish conquistadors arrive on our shores, starving, haggard, and in no mood for conquest.
Decades later, Abraham Zapruder’s infamous film still holds a strange power over us.
The Dallas author on Steve Martin, Kristen Stewart, Vin Diesel, and the “good weird experience” of watching Ang Lee turn his award-winning novel into a major motion picture.
Elephants never forget, but Texas Reaganites wish they could.
I never knew my father, a decorated World War II pilot who died before I was born. But a trek at age 67 to the site where his airplane crashed brought me closer to him than I’d ever dared hope.
Discovering the joys of Friday Night Lights, ten years after everyone else.
After decades under the radar, Margo Martindale has turned herself into that rarest of things: a famous character actor.
No, he wasn’t from here. But that hasn’t stopped us from claiming him as one of our own.
The hopelessly devoted, surprisingly normal, not at all creepy cult of Fandango.
What this historical dramatization of the Texas Revolution could have been—and what it was.
“Texas Rising” might even be good.
Usually the devil is in the details, but with “Texas Rising,” the broad brush strokes are more troubling.
Texas Rising has taken historic liberties that have undermined rather than enhanced the narrative momentum of the story.
Don’t invite a history buff to your "Texas Rising" viewing party.
Will Marco Perella’s portrayal of a loathsome jerk in Richard Linklater’s Boyhood turn out to be the biggest break of his long, low-profile career—or just another paying gig?
Watch any footage from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, and you’ll find yourself mesmerized by the unfreezing of time.
Forty years later, I still can’t forget sitting in a darkened theater to watch “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” with the movie’s leading man.
Sure, you can catch an awesome wave on the Texas coast, you just have to be patient. And clever. And patient . . .
Searching for signs of greatness in the tepid rom-coms of this year’s best actor.
Nearly everything about moviegoing has changed since I first fell in love with the big screen as a kid. But my ardor remains.
Stephen Harrigan bids farewell to John Graves, a great man of Texas letters, who died July 30, 2013.
I don’t know what it’s like to be the victim of a terror attack, but as of this weekend I know what it’s like to think you’re the victim of a terror attack.
The wild and powerful tarpon once ruled the seas off Port Aransas. Why did the ancient fish disappear? And could they make a comeback?
I was never certain how to explain the importance of the state to my three daughters. Now that I have two grandsons—named Mason and Travis, no less—I’ve realized something that I should have known all along.
Henry Cisneros has the vision and charisma of a born leader. Does it matter that he has the soul of an Aggie?
After 164 years, what more is there to say about (or see at) the old mission church in downtown San Antonio? That depends on how you look at it.
A visit to San Antonio’s underground city, looking for kids with a can of paint and a nose for thrills.
You can lead a herd to water, but can you make a miniseries faithful to Larry McMurtry’s Texas classic?
In the late sixties, the Capital City was just as thrilling, drug-addled, pompous, and aimless as you’ve heard. Especially if you came from the provinces.
For hundreds of years man—from the Comanche to the backpacker—has tried to conquer Big Bend. Still, it remains wild, stark, and pristine.
A culinary obsession that began decades ago in my grandmother’s kitchen sent me on a quest through Central Texas (and way beyond) for kolaches—not the best ones but the ones that would lead me to myself.
In this exclusive excerpt from Remember Ben Clayton, a new novel by Stephen Harrigan, a sculptor meets a lonely rancher who has lost his son and needs something to remember him by.
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by mammoths, those giant, prehistoric creatures that once roamed Texas. So I decided to go looking for them.
63 things that all Texans must do before they die.
Skip Hollandsworth specializes in long-form narratives.
In Bill Wittliff’s Lonesome Dove photos, make-believe has never seemed so real.
In this exclusive excerpt from Stephen Harrigan’s new novel, Challenger Park, a female astronaut confronts mommy-track issues on the way to outer space.
The break-up of the space shuttle Columbia was a chilling reminder that the astronauts who dare to dream and risk their lives for the benefit of all mankind are, at the end of the day, mere mortals.