Amazon.com: A Natural State (9780877191070): Stephen Harrigan: Books

Editorial Reviews

Review

In his introduction to the eight essays in A Natural State, Stephen Harrigan writes with a becoming modesty: "I don' t know what nature is exactly-whether it is a category that includes human beings or shuts them out-but for me it has always contained that hint of eeriness, the sense that some vital information-common knowledge to all the universe-has been specifically withheld from me." Once into the essays, however, it is soon evident that Harrigan not only knows and loves nature but that he is a master at describing it with a compelling inimediacy. This collection of works, originally appearing in The Texas Review where Harrigan is senior editor, is nothing short of magnificent. From the descriptions of the daily routines that mark the dawn in "Morning Light" to the pragmatic philosophy of "What Texas Means To Me," Harrigan's clean, crisp prose draws the reader into a crystalline world of detail that is centered in Texas but encompasses the universe. Along the way the author stops at the Houston Zoo, in the deserts, along the beaches of the Gulf coast and at an amusement park that is an integral element of the San Marcos, beautifully captured in "The Perfect River." Attention to detail is the quality that makes Harrigan's writing so fascinating. Whether he is describing the smallest parasites to be found on a bloody carcass by the side of the road or waxing poetic about the ephemeral images of the desert, each word is carefully chosen to evoke in the reader the awe Harrigan so obviously feels in the face of nature. That history, science, and philosophy are a part of this journey is an added bonus; it is more than enough just to share his perspectives on the world. A Natural State is an essential addition to libraries and bookstores. Its only flaw is that it ends much too quickly, leaving the reader with an urgent desire to travel to Texas to experience personally these incredibly complex and hauntingly beautiful landscapes. -- From Independent Publisher

More About the Author

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Stephen Harrigan was born in Oklahoma City in 1948 and has lived in Texas since the age of five, growing up in Abilene and Corpus Christi.
For many years he was a staff writer and senior editor at Texas Monthly, and his articles and essays have appeared in a wide range of other publications as well, including The Atlantic, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Audubon, Travel Holiday, Life, American History, National Geographic and Slate. Many of his magazine pieces have been collected in the essay collections A Natural State (1988) and Comanche Midnight (1995). Another non-fiction book, Water and Light: A Diver's Journey to a Coral Reef, was published by Houghton Mifflin in 1992.
Harrigan is the author of four novels. His first novel, Aransas, published by Alfred A. Knopf, was listed by the New York Times as a notable book of 1980. Jacob's Well was published by Simon and Schuster in 1984 and cited as one of the year's best books by The Washington Post and The Dallas Morning News. In 2000, Knopf published his novel The Gates of the Alamo, which became a New York Times bestseller and notable book, and which received a number of awards, including the TCU Texas Book Award, the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and the Spur Award for the Best Novel of the West. In April 2006, Knopf published Challenger Park, a novel about a woman astronaut torn between her responsibilities as a mother and her dreams of flying in space. Writing in the New York Times Book Review, Thomas Mallon called Challenger Park "a fine, absorbing achievement, probably the best science-factual novel about the space-faring worlds of Houston and Cape Canaveral in the nearly half-century since the first astronauts were chosen." His latest novel, Remember Ben Clayton, will be published by Knopf in May 2011.
Among the many movies Harrigan has written for television are HBO's award-winning The Last of His Tribe, starring Jon Voight and Graham Greene, and King of Texas, a western retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear for TNT, which starred Patrick Stewart, Marcia Gay Harden, and Roy Scheider. His most recent television production was The Colt, an adaptation of a short story by the Nobel-prize winning author Mikhail Sholokhov, which aired on The Hallmark Channel. For his screenplay of The Colt, Harrigan was nominated for a Writers Guild Award and the Humanitas Prize. Young Caesar, a feature adaptation of Conn Iggulden's "Emperor" novels, which he co-wrote with William Broyles, Jr., is currently in development with Exclusive Media, with Burr Steers attached to direct.
A 1971 graduate of the University of Texas, Harrigan lives in Austin, where he is a faculty fellow at UT's James A. Michener Center for Writers. He is also a founding member of the Texas Book Festival, and of Capital Area Statues, Inc., a non-profit organization that commissions and raises money for monumental works of sculpture celebrating the history and culture of Texas. He and his wife, Sue Ellen, have three daughters, Marjorie, Dorothy and Charlotte, and two grandchildren, Mason and Travis.