Twenty-five years ago, Larry McMurtry published a novel called Lonesome Dove—and Texas hasn’t looked the same since. Listen in as more than thirty writers, critics, producers, and actors, from Peter Bogdonavich and Dave Hickey to Tommy Lee Jones, Robert Duvall, and Anjelica Huston, tell the stories behind the book (and
How a mild-mannered database analyst from Dallas became the undisputed king of extreme competitive deep-frying in Texas—which is to say, the world.
Meet Toribio Romo, the patron saint of immigrants.
Forget the Outer Continental Shelf. There’s a good old-fashioned boom happening in Midland, thanks to a crafty drilling technique that unlocked the secret reserves of the Permian Basin and revived the late, great West Texas oilman.
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.
We used to be known for running backs, but all of a sudden, we’re famous for producing some of the country’s best passers, from Drew Brees to Colt McCoy. What turned our high school football programs into quarterback factories?
The short life and tragic death of Johnny Romano, the youngest professional skateboarder ever.
Twenty-five years ago, in the wake of integration, he was the football star at my mostly white high school in Wichita Falls. Not much has gone right for him since.
Die-hard fans of America’s Team are debating that very question as we speak—and also wondering if the kid from Wisconsin with the buxom distraction can take them to the Super Bowl any faster than, say, Gary Hogeboom did.
Bolstered by his favorite phrase, my son Mark faced life with grace, dignity, and good humor. I knew he’d face death the same way.
A visit to San Antonio’s underground city, looking for kids with a can of paint and a nose for thrills.
Fred Thomas was young, poor, and black. Not only was he afflicted with the terror of schizophrenia, he was also faced with the chaos of the Texas mental health system.
Working on his memoir one day in 1969, LBJ spoke more frankly into a tape recorder about the Kennedys, Vietnam, and other subjects than he ever had before. The transcript of that tape has never been published—until now. Michael Beschloss explains its historical significance.
Why Peter Bogdanovich filmed in black and white, who discovered Cybill Shepherd, which onetime soap opera diva read for the role of Jacy, and other secrets of the making of ‘The Last Picture Show.’ Plus: A few words from the late Ben Johnson.
Thirty years ago, people couldnt believe it: The old man’s elixir boosted crops, ate up sewage, and made the desert bloom. Today half a dozen Texas companies claim the elixir does all that and a whole lot more.
Who came first—Indiana Jones of Hollywood or Vendyl Jones of Arlington, the archaeologist who has spent years trying to dig up the fabled Ark of the Covenant?
Rock and Country music met in Austin. That friendship may make the state.
The head of the Texas Film Commission hustles Hollywood movie-makers into putting more of Texas in the can.
The controversial home of an embattled college president is a symbol of a Panhandle brawl full of conspiracies.
Most people from Dallas who make it big in the music business get out of town as soon as they can. “That’s what celebrities do,” Erykah Badu says. “I never wanted to be a celebrity.”
In word and deed, the George W. Bush now residing in the White House bears little resemblance to the Texas governor I gladly sent to Washington. That's why I'm so ambivalent about reelecting him.
“All you’ve got is a famous name,” a Republican operative told George W. Bush. But six years later he was governor, and six years after that he was president. And six years after that, his place in history—not to mention the fate of the world—is a little uncertain.
What’s so important about a stack of wood? Every Aggie knows that the answer is tradition—which is why, after a catastrophe that took the lives of twelve young men and women, the decision of whether to continue, change, or call a halt to the bonfire looms so large at Texas
Ringside as two dogs—father and son—fight to the death.
The lovesick antics of diapered astronaut Lisa Nowak are some combination of funny and sad but seemingly not revealing of anything larger, until you realize that her tragic, tabloidy breakdown says everything you need to know about NASA’s many troubles.
For all her talent and poise, Beyoncé didn't become the biggest star in the world without help. And she got plenty of it from the people who know her best.
Director Oliver Stone may not be sure who did it or how, but he is sure he knows why.
While politicians and bureaucrats endlessly debate the best ways to secure our borders, undocumented immigrants are dying to get into America—literally.
How has the state’s most storied ranch managed to survive and thrive in the twenty-first century? By operating in a way that its founder, Captain Richard King, would scarcely recognize.
In suburban Fort Worth the frail psyche of a football prodigy collided with the crazed ambition of his dad, who himself had been a high school football star way back when. The consequences were deadly.
The short, slight, mentally disabled black man was found on the side of a road in Linden, huddled in a fetal position. He was bloody and unconscious—the victim of a violent crime. But another tragedy was how residents of the East Texas town reacted.
My best friend from high school is no longer the uncool, baseball-card-collecting goofball he once was. He’s a Navy surgeon and commander, and for two horrific weeks I got to watch him calmly and bravely save lives in wartime—not just Americans’ and not just soldiers’—in one of the most dangerous
No one in McAllen saw Irene Garza leave Sacred Heart that night in 1960. The next morning, her car was still parked down the street from the church. She never came home.
His dreams. His fears. The truth about his love life. A candid chat with Texas’ most misunderstood sports hero.
Decades after his family controlled Galveston’s liquor and gambling, 89-year-old Vic Maceo is clinging to his gangster past—and to his pistol.
In one year the eyes of the world will turn to Dallas's Dealey Plaza for the fiftieth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Is the city ready?
Her husband, Fred Baron, helped bankroll John Edwards's presidential campaign, only to die of cancer amid the most sordid political scandal in recent history. But before long, Dallas's newest rainmaker had emerged from the wreckage—with every hair in place.
Meet the two preteen sisters from Alvin who compete against, and beat, adult runners.
And the story of how I started spelling it that way (with the accent) begins with a kidnapping.
Joe Hagan profiles the Bush dynasty for New York magazine.
Two decades ago, a barbarian from Arkansas named Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys and rebooted the franchise from the ground up. Inside the wild first days of the most hostile takeover the NFL has ever known.
The only American ever to design scarves for the exclusive French fashion house Hermès is Kermit Oliver, a 69-year-old postal worker from Waco who lives in a strange and beautiful world all his own.
For the past four years, a group of passionate reformers has been steadily trying to remake how higher education works in Texas—over the screams and howls of many professors and school presidents. Last year the battle came to UT. And the bombs are still flying.
Sending a Texan off into the world—and hoping he’ll return.
Every year, hundreds of Texas high schoolers are aggressively recruited by the nation’s top college football programs. It’s a dream come true, but some kids must go through the bewildering process alone. And according to the rules of the NCAA, there aren’t many places they can turn to for help.
In 2011 the Legislature slashed family planning funds, passed a new sonogram law, and waged an all-out war on Planned Parenthood that has dramatically shifted the state’s public health priorities. In the eighteen months since then, the conflict has continued to simmer in the courts, on the campaign trail, and
Canadian journalist and author Ryan Knighton—who is blind—communes with reptiles he can't see for VICE magazine.
A new book, Flagrant Conduct: The Story of Lawrence v. Texas, explores the history of the men behind the landmark Supreme Court case and questions the conventional wisdom of the story.
For a quarter of a century, the Art Guys, Michael Galbreth and Jack Massing, have been Houston’s master provocateurs, stirring up discussion with their wacky, thoughtful, and tenaciously marketed “social sculptures.” But have they finally gone too far?
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.
