Texas Summer

New York, NY: Arcade Pub, 1992. Hard cover. Very good in very good dust jacket. Texas Summer (Hardcover IN DUST JACKET CONDITION VERY GOOD-PUBLISHED BY ARCADE PUBLISHING CO-1991 COPYRIGHT FIRST EDITION) by Terry Southern An evocative, poignant coming-of-age novel set in rural Texas in the 1930s.... Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 174 p. Audience: General/trade. Texas Summer (Hardcover IN DUST JACKET CONDITION VERY GOOD-PUBLISHED BY ARCADE PUBLISHING CO-1991 COPYRIGHT FIRST EDITION) by Terry Southern An evocative, poignant coming-of-age novel set in rural Texas in the 1930s. Through events small and large, 13-year-old Harold Stevens grows up during a pivotal summer in the red-dirt backcountry of West Texas. With his friend C.K. Crow, the black field hand who works for Harold s father, he shoots deer and quail, fishes for catfish, mends fences, grows and learns about marijuana, and tests his emerging manhood against bullies, bulls, and the irresistible charms of his horse-riding older cousin. During a hysterical trip to a circus sideshow, Harold and a buddy sneak backstage to see "The Great Hermaphrodite" and the "funny little old Monkey Man, " whom they try to buy a beer. But danger waits on the fringe of this innocent time. When C.K. s brother, Big Nail, appears after escaping from a chain gang, an inevitable and violent confrontation between the brothers is set in motion-a confrontation that will mark the end of Harold s childhood. This inside view of Southern s roots in Alvarado, Texas, where pastoral innocence belied an undercurrent of racism and violence, brings this novel of a boy s transition to maturity vividly alive.