Editor's Note

Editor’s Note

Let's Go to the Movies!

William Jensen

Have you ever read a novelization?

   Novels based off of a different mediums sounds strange for some reason—yet films, plays, comics, and even video games are based off novels all the time. Why can’t it go the other way around? 

   I read a couple when I was in Jr. High, and admittingly, I found them wooden and stale, but a few years ago I returned to the genre out of curiosity and discovered a plethora of fascinating books. Okay, some were still the literary equivalent of a cardboard sandwich, but others went wild, deep, and dark. Some were better than the films that preceded them, too. I was also surprised how some novelizations are difficult to find. On Ebay several elusive novelizations are listed for over $100, and most of them vanish quicker than a cold front in Texas. 

   The more interesting novelizations dared to go other places. If a film was limited with the point-of-view, the novelist molded new life with interiority. If a story was constrained with setting, some novels delved into background. Other books deviated boldly from plots and arcs entirely. Several novelizations created new characters that fleshed out poorly constructed narratives, weak conflicts, and confusing motivations. My favorite one served as an entire prologue to a film, with details from the screenplay not arising until the final thirty pages. 

   Creativity can transform. In the right hands, a good filmmaker can turn a cheap novel into high art. Yes, sometimes the film is better. Sorry, not sorry. It makes sense then that a good writer can take an okay movie and turn it into poetry. Some genres beg to be mixed. Some bars want to be raised. Is there a film or a play you wished for more insight into the characters? Novels can do that. Books do that. Books have powers that still cannot be rivaled, and in the right hands they can transport readers to magical, terrifying, joyous, intense, and wonderful places. And creativity and inspiration can come from anywhere.

   This fall there was lots of creativity and inspiration at the Center for the Study of the Southwest. In September, Juliana Barr discussed the Indigenous side to a famous seventeenth-century Spanish story of a nun carried to the Americas to spread Christianity; poet and performer Tim Z. Hernandez returned to read from his latest book, They Call You Back, the follow-up to his wildly successful All They Will Call You; and in August, our director helped with the foundation document workshop at the Blackwell School National Historic Site in Marfa, Texas. It has been busy, busy, busy, but that’s how we like it.

   This issue of Texas Books in Review is similarly filled with creativity, inspiration, poetry, and intrigue. The novelist Andrew Bourelle gives his insights into the crime novel Pay Dirt Road. Our own editorial intern, Cheyanne Clagett, chimes in with her two-cents about the horror novel Bless Your Heart, and Hannah Martin gets musical with her review about Chuco Punk about the punk rock scene in El Paso and along the border with the Latinx influence on the genre. If you are craving more music, we also have the biography of Terry Allen in Truckload of Dirt. If you want more biography and history, Audrey Colombe tackles This Familiar Heart: an Improbable Love Story about Babette Hale’s long marriage to Leon Hale; Jay Cody Key returns with his reflections on The Texas Lowcountry: Slavery and Freedom on the Gulf Coast 1822–1895. Similarly, Rebecca Scofield covers Sarah Bird’s book about black cowboys in Juneteenth Rodeo. 

   These books are just a nibble of all the writings centered on Texas. We’re a big state. The land and the people and the history here will never be exhausted, there will always be stories to tell, events to remember, and figures to explore. We hope you find a fresh voice here in Texas Books in Review.