Steven L. Davis

Bill Minutaglio

From Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis, authors of the PEN Center USA award-winning Dallas 1963, comes a madcap narrative about Timothy Leary's daring prison escape and run from the law. On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius I.Q. studies a twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a ten-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, Leary's escape from prison is the counterculture's union of "dope and dynamite," aimed at sparking a revolution and overthrowing the government. Inside the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon drinks his way through sleepless nights as he expands the war in Vietnam and plots to unleash the United States government against his ever-expanding list of domestic enemies. Antiwar demonstrators are massing by the tens of thousands; homemade bombs are exploding everywhere; Black Panther leaders are threatening to burn down the White House; and all the while Nixon obsesses over tracking down Timothy Leary, whom he has branded "the most dangerous man in America." Based on freshly uncovered primary sources and new firsthand interviews, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA is an American thriller that takes readers along for the gonzo ride of a lifetime. Spanning twenty-eight months, President Nixon's careening, global manhunt for Dr. Timothy Leary winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and secret agents on four continents, culminating in one of the trippiest journeys through the American counterculture.

Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD

The Most Dangerous Man in America

Presents an account of the radicals, reactionaries, and extremists who turned Dallas into a city infamous for the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Dallas 1963

'It's a rollicking tale that brings to life the antic atmosphere of America in the 'Me' Decade' Wall Street Journal 'A madcap chase... this is a well-written chronicle of 28 months when the world went slightly mad' Sunday Times 'A suitably head-spinning account of LSD High Priest Dr Timothy Leary' Mail on Sunday On the moonlit evening of September 12, 1970, an ex-Harvard professor with a genius IQ studies a twelve-foot high fence topped with barbed wire. A few months earlier, Dr. Timothy Leary, the High Priest of LSD, had been running a gleeful campaign for California governor against Ronald Reagan. Now, Leary is six months into a ten-year prison sentence for the crime of possessing two marijuana cigarettes. Aided by the radical Weather Underground, Leary's escape from prison is the counterculture's union of "dope and dynamite," aimed at sparking a revolution and overthrowing the government. Inside the Oval Office, President Richard Nixon drinks his way through sleepless nights as he expands the war in Vietnam and plots to unleash the United States government against his ever-expanding list of domestic enemies. Antiwar demonstrators are massing by the tens of thousands; homemade bombs are exploding everywhere; Black Panther leaders are threatening to burn down the White House; and all the while Nixon obsesses over tracking down Timothy Leary, whom he has branded "the most dangerous man in America." Based on freshly uncovered primary sources and new firsthand interviews, THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA is an American thriller that takes readers along for the gonzo ride of a lifetime. Spanning twenty-eight months, President Nixon's careening, global manhunt for Dr. Timothy Leary winds its way among homegrown radicals, European aristocrats, a Black Panther outpost in Algeria, an international arms dealer, hash-smuggling hippies from the Brotherhood of Eternal Love, and secret agents on four continents, culminating in one of the trippiest journeys through the American counterculture.

Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Research Nonfiction Named one of the Top 3 JFK Books by Parade Magazine. Named 1 of The 5 Essential Kennedy assassination books ever written by The Daily Beast. Named one of the Top Nonfiction Books of 2013 by Kirkus Reviews. In the months and weeks before the fateful November 22nd, 1963, Dallas was brewing with political passions, a city crammed with larger-than-life characters dead-set against the Kennedy presidency. These included rabid warriors like defrocked military general Edwin A. Walker; the world's richest oil baron, H. L. Hunt; the leader of the largest Baptist congregation in the world, W.A. Criswell; and the media mogul Ted Dealey, who raucously confronted JFK and whose family name adorns the plaza where the president was murdered. On the same stage was a compelling cast of marauding gangsters, swashbuckling politicos, unsung civil rights heroes, and a stylish millionaire anxious to save his doomed city. Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis ingeniously explore the swirling forces that led many people to warn President Kennedy to avoid Dallas on his fateful trip to Texas. Breathtakingly paced, DALLAS 1963 presents a clear, cinematic, and revelatory look at the shocking tragedy that transformed America. Countless authors have attempted to explain the assassination, but no one has ever bothered to explain Dallas-until now. With spellbinding storytelling, Minutaglio and Davis lead us through intimate glimpses of the Kennedy family and the machinations of the Kennedy White House, to the obsessed men in Dallas who concocted the climate of hatred that led many to blame the city for the president's death. Here at long last is an accurate understanding of what happened in the weeks and months leading to John F. Kennedy's assassination. DALLAS 1963 is not only a fresh look at a momentous national tragedy but a sobering reminder of how radical, polarizing ideologies can poison a city-and a nation.

Setting out to create a collection of J. Frank Dobie's writing that "brings him alive and makes him relevant to current generations of readers," Steven L. Davis has combed through the works of this renowned Texas author, gathering together in one volume Dobie's most vital writings. Dobie's stories and essays here are meticulously edited to "prune away some of the brushy undergrowth" and bring Dobie's folksy, erudite voice bounding back to life. The result is The Essential J. Frank Dobie, a treasury that introduces new readers to Dobie--and reminds older ones that Dobie captured priceless social history while producing some of the most fascinating, best-informed writing about Texas. Dobie bore eloquent witness to the passing of ancient pastoral lifeways and was decades ahead of his time in championing civil rights and protecting the environment. Davis, a Dobie biographer, has found the stories only the master himself could tell--those enriched by his matchless personal adventures, from Mexico to wartime Europe to the remote outback, where he joined wandering seekers on their quests for lost treasures. Featuring previously published works as well as writing that has never before appeared in book form, The Essential J. Frank Dobie will intrigue, inform, and delight readers: both those who know Dobie's work as an old acquaintance and those who are meeting him for the first time in these pages. As Davis concludes, "the spirit of Dobie is as alive as ever. May you be nourished by it."

The Essential J. Frank Dobie

Lorsque Timothy Leary, ancien professeur d'Harvard, s'enfuit d'une prison californienne, il ne se doute pas qu'une des plus impitoyables chasses à l'homme serait lancée... La nuit du 12 septembre 1970, l'apôtre de la contre-culture hippie et grand manitou du LSD Timothy Leary s'évade d'une prison californienne. Arrêté quelques mois plus tôt en possession de deux joints de marijuana, il avait été condamné à dix ans... Son évasion spectaculaire fut le grand fait d’armes de la mouvance révolutionnaire américaine la plus radicale, déterminée à renverser le gouvernement. À Washington, le président Nixon aligne les nuits sans sommeil, embourbé dans la guerre du Vietnam. Les manifestations tournent à l'émeute, des bombes explosent partout dans le pays et les Black Panthers menacent la Maison-Blanche. Le président n’a dès lors plus qu’une obsession : mettre la main sur Timothy Leary, qu’il qualifie « d’homme le plus dangereux d’Amérique ». Basée sur de nombreux témoignages et documents inédits, voici l'histoire d'une trépidante chasse à l’homme menée par le FBI, des USA à l’Afghanistan. Un récit déjanté où se croisent hippies défoncés, radicaux américains, aristocrates européens, trafiquants d’armes et agents secrets. Un trip délirant au cœur de la contre-culture américaine ! Les auteurs se penchent sur la cavale effrenante de Timothy Leary et découvrent de nouveaux témoignages et des sources inédites. Par ce récit au rythme haletant, découvrez un pan inconnu de l'histoire des Etats-Unis des années 70 ! EXTRAIT Après cette rencontre avec le Secrétaire d’État, Nixon demande qu’une « Conférence de presse de la Maison-Blanche sur la Toxicomanie » soit organisée. Les soixante-dix dirigeants de médias conviés par le président auront la primeur d’entendre les avancées faites par l’État pour endiguer l’épidémie de narcotiques. Avec démonstration à l’appui. Kishi, une femelle berger allemand, chien renifleur, est présentée pour démontrer ses capacités à trouver une planque de haschich. Les agents des douanes disposent sur la pelouse de la Maison-Blanche trente-trois colis postaux non réclamés, sélectionnés au hasard pour l’occasion. Les agents complètent le lot par un paquet dans lequel a été caché un kilo de chanvre bien emballé. Devant l’assemblée attentive, on lâche Kishi. La chienne commence à renifler frénétiquement les colis et trouve rapidement le bagage dans lequel la drogue est dissimulée. Chacun applaudit. Soudain, Kishi renifle avec insistance un autre colis, et commence à le gratter. Ce n’était pas au programme des agents fédéraux. Ils regardent le président avec confusion. Une bougie de 20 × 10 cm est retrouvée, fourrée de 200 gr de hasch de première qualité. À PROPOS DES AUTEURS Bill Minutaglio a notamment écrit pour le New York Times, le Guardian, Newsweek, le Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Il est professeur à l’Université du Texas à Austin et reçut pour le livre Dallas 1963, coécrit avec Steven L. Davis, le prix PEN du meilleur essai. Il est aussi l’auteur de l’anthologie In Search of the Blues et de livres encensés traitant de George W. Bush, de l’écrivaine Molly Ivins et du plus grand désastre industriel arrivé en Amérique (www.billminutaglio.com). Steven L. Davis a reçu le prix PEN du meilleur essai pour le livre Dallas 1963 (coécrit avec Bill Minutaglio). Auteur de deux livres sur le Texas, il est également éditeur.

Récit biographique

L'homme le plus dangereux d'Amérique

Bill Cunningham

Rollo K. Newsom

A collection of thirty short crime stories set in Texas by a variety of writers, including Kinky Friedman, Mary Willis Walker, and Carolyn Hart.

An Anthology of Texas Crime Fiction

Lone Star Sleuths

Maglina Lubovich

White, heterosexual, middle-class men have long served as the standard for masculine “beauty,” even if such men have refused to embrace this term. This study seeks to denaturalize this standard by exploring the connections between beauty and the broad spectrum of masculinities. The chapters included in Hunks, Hotties, and Pretty Boys contribute primarily to the field of gender studies, specifically masculinity studies. They consider twentieth-century representations of male beauty through a variety of mediums: performance, literature, art, photography, film and television. Although the contributors hail from both the humanities and the social sciences, all share a concern for how beauty informs, shapes, defines, and re-defines our understanding of masculinity itself. These scholars investigate a range of historical periods and draw from a broad scope of critical approaches. Some interrogate male beauty through the female gaze and look to the influence of female performance on notions of masculine beauty. Others examine how queer and racial constructions of male beauty refuse and offer alternatives to hegemonic models of identity. Another revisits previous philosophical and theoretical conceptions of beauty, only to deconstruct gendered conceptions of the beautiful and the sublime. In all, these essays complicate masculine beauty by examining Chicano, Asian, working class, and female constructions of male beauty in Western culture.

Twentieth-Century Representations of Male Beauty

Hunks, Hotties, and Pretty Boys

Davis makes extensive use of untapped literary archives to weave a fascinating portrait of six Texas writers, calling themselves the Mad Dogs, who came of age during a period of rapid social change: Bud Shrake, Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, and Peter Gent.

Six Writers in the Sixties and Beyond

Texas Literary Outlaws

The first Texas-based writer to gain national attention, J. Frank Dobie proved that authentic writing springs easily from the native soil of Texas and the Southwest. In best-selling books such as Tales of Old-Time Texas, Coronado's Children, and The Longhorns, Dobie captured the Southwest's folk history, which was quickly disappearing as the United States became ever more urbanized and industrial. Renowned as "Mr. Texas," Dobie paradoxically has almost disappeared from view—a casualty of changing tastes in literature and shifts in social and political attitudes since the 1960s. In this lively biography, Steven L. Davis takes a fresh look at a J. Frank Dobie whose "liberated mind" set him on an intellectual journey that culminated in Dobie becoming a political liberal who fought for labor, free speech, and civil rights well before these causes became acceptable to most Anglo Texans. Tracing the full arc of Dobie's life (1888–1964), Davis shows how Dobie's insistence on "free-range thinking" led him to such radical actions as calling for the complete integration of the University of Texas during the 1940s, as well as taking on governors, senators, and the FBI (which secretly investigated him) as Texas's leading dissenter during the McCarthy era.

Steven L. Davis

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