Editor's Note
Editor’s Note:
End of an Era
William Jensen
People have called 2020 a dumpster fire of a year. Indeed, it is shocking that so much has gone so wrong in such a short period. We can skip the gory details. Everyone has borne witness in some manner. Luckily, a new year is upon us, so we can be hopeful for better things. Skepticism is natural, of course. Some of us may wish for grandiose changes; some of us will wish for simple gatherings, which we never knew we took for granted. Twelve months of fires, hurricanes, riots, quarantines, murder hornets, and political fighting has taken its toll. I, for one, am ready for a break.
After everything is said and done, it feels a bit strange to write about books and authors. As much as I love novels, short stories, and poetry, I must admit there are bigger things with which to be concerned. But we keep trucking. This fall The Center for the Study of the Southwest has managed to stage several (socially distanced) readings and events. One of the biggest things we were involved in this fall was “Pledge to Distance,” a campaign aimed at promoting social distancing through personalized artwork. We hope you take a look.
This semester, we also hosted Omar Valerio-Jiménez, who spoke via zoom about the collective memory and trauma of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Sonia Hernandez lectured about Anarcho-Feminists along the Gulf of Mexico. Videos of these speakers and others can easily be found at our website. Luckily, 2020 has not slowed us down much. We are still reading books. We keep reviewing books, too. And sometimes taking a deep breath and sitting with a good book is the best (or only) thing we can do, even if it is for only a few minutes or a chapter at a time.
Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.
During the initial lockdown, I found myself reading maybe more than ever. Others baked loaves of sourdough or binged The Tiger King, but I read. I re-read a few thrillers such as Red Dragon and The Stand, and I dug back into the poetry of John Berryman and Isaac Rosenberg. I pulled down my copy of A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe a few times, too. But I couldn’t bring myself to endure it again. Timing is everything.
Reading can be a type of meditation. In this issue of Texas Books in Review, we have a lot possible escapes from 2020. If you enjoy poetry, you should read Anthony Isaac Bradley’s review of Gloss, the latest collection from Wendy Barker. We are also proud to present Matthew Travares’s thoughts on The Center for the Study of the Southwest’s previous Editorial Fellow Claudia Delfina Cardona’s debut book of poetry, What Remains. Of course, Texas Books in Review always has a nice assortment of history; this issue features reviews of Porous Borders: Multiracial Migrations and the Law in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands by Julian Lim. Patrick Torres also explores the supernatural in his review of Ghosts of Houston’s Market Square Park. If you like suspense, be sure to see what Jim Sanderson thinks of Jon Land’s latest Caitlin Strong adventure, Strong From The Heart. Similarly, you can read my views of the new mystery from James Patterson, Texas Outlaw. There are plenty of options, no matter what your reading taste happens to be. So take a minute. Breathe. Good books are still out there. And Texas books might be the best ones.