'Grover was, after all, the most stone wonderful writer that nobody ever heard of...His job was to hammer the detritus of fugitive cultural encounters into elegant sentences, lapidary paragraphs, and knowable truth; and, in truth, the loveliness and lucidity of Grover's writing always rose to the triviality of the occasion' - Dave Hickey, from the foreword.Grover Lewis was one of the defining voices of the New Journalism of the 1960s and 1970s. His wry, acutely observed, fluently written essays for Rolling Stone and the Village Voice set a standard for other writers of the time, including Hunter S. Thompson, Joe Eszterhas, Timothy Ferris, Chet Flippo, and Tim Cahill, who said of Lewis, 'He was the best of us'. Pioneering the 'on location' reportage that has become a fixture of features about movie making and live music, Lewis cut through the celebrity hype and captured the real spirit of the counterculture, including its artificiality and surprising banality. Even today, his articles on Woody Guthrie, the Allman Brothers, the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont, directors Sam Peckinpah and Sam Houston, and the filming of "The Last Picture Show" and "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" remain some of the finest writing ever done on popular culture.To introduce Grover Lewis to a new generation of readers and collect his best work under one cover, this anthology contains articles he wrote for "Rolling Stone", "Village Voice", "Playboy", "Texas Monthly", and "New West", as well as excerpts from his unfinished novel "The Code of the West" and his incomplete memoir "Goodbye If You Call That Gone" and poems from the volume "I'll Be There in the Morning If I Live".Jan Reid and W. K. Stratton have selected and arranged the material around themes that preoccupied Lewis throughout his life - movies, music, and loss. The editors' biographical introduction, the foreword by Dave Hickey, and a remembrance by Robert Draper discuss how Lewis' early struggles to escape his working-class, anti-intellectual Texas roots for the world of ideas in books and movies made him a natural proponent of the counterculture that he chronicled so brilliantly. They also pay tribute to Lewis' groundbreaking talent as a stylist, whose unique voice deserves to be more widely known by today's readers.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
Dave Hickey gets it exactly right in his preface to this collection of journalism, poetry, fiction and memoir: Lewis, who died in 1997, was indeed 'the most stone wonderful writer that nobody ever heard of.' Writing for Rolling Stone in the early '70s, he almost singlehandedly invented the movie set piece, and no one's ever improved on his flint-eyed profiles of Sam Peckinpah and the Allman Brothers. But the best piece here is his searing memoir of his white-trash Texas parents, who died in what was ruled a double suicide. Etched in acid and heart's blood, it is a terse masterpiece. (Malcolm Jones Newsweek )
Your gonzo journalism library isn't complete without him. (Ruminator )
Your gonzo journalism library isn't complete without him. (Ruminator )
About the Author
JAN REID, like Grover Lewis, is a magazine writer, who has written for Texas Monthly, GQ, Esquire, New York Times magazine, Men's Journal, and Slate. His books include The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, The Bullet Meant for Me, and Rio Grande. He lives in Austin, Texas.
W. K. "KIP" STRATTON has written for Sports Illustrated, GQ, Outside, Southern magazine, Americana, and D: The Magazine of Dallas. His previous book is Backyard Brawl: Inside the Blood Feud between Texas and Texas A&M. Harcourt will publish his next book, Chasing the Rodeo, in 2005. He lives near Austin, Texas.
W. K. "KIP" STRATTON has written for Sports Illustrated, GQ, Outside, Southern magazine, Americana, and D: The Magazine of Dallas. His previous book is Backyard Brawl: Inside the Blood Feud between Texas and Texas A&M. Harcourt will publish his next book, Chasing the Rodeo, in 2005. He lives near Austin, Texas.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant Writer,
This review is from: Splendor in the Short Grass: The Grover Lewis Reader (Hardcover)
I always liked Grover Lewis' brilliant and insightful writing for Rolling Stone magazine, so it's great to have a collection of pieces from this unjustly neglected author. His poetry is a little darker than I expected but that's not too surprising considering his troubled youth, which is detailed in the biographical sketch that begins the book. Those interested in cinema (or great writing) will find much to enjoy here, particularly the pieces on Sam Peckinpah and the making of The Last Picture Show. I was a little disappointed that the pieces on Paul Newman and Charlie Smith (the oldest man in America in 1972) were not included, but that's a minor quibble. This is a superb book!
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