The Purse Bearer: A Novel of Love, Lust and Texas Politics by Joe Holley
978-1-60940-383-6
$16.95, 323 pgs
First of all let me tell you a little something about the
author of The Purse Bearer. Joe Holley is the politics editor and “Native Texan” columnist for the Houston Chronicle. He’s spent time at
the Texas Observer and the Washington Post. He has been around
politics, particularly Texas politics, forever. He also worked for Governor Ann
Richards. So I tend to think he probably knows whereof he speaks and this
should scare the hell out of everybody.
The Purse Bearer
is the story of how a political innocent loses it in the muck of a Texas senatorial
campaign in 1980. Wily T. Foxx (I swear that’s his name) is plucked out of his
job scraping roadkill off the state’s highways to be a Boy Friday, a kind of
personal assistant, in State Comptroller Rose Marie “Red” Ryder’s campaign to
become the first woman elected to the United States Senate from Texas. The seasoned
campaign operative who hand-picked Wily T. for the position and now functions
as his mentor is Ewell Suskin – “Aboy” to his friends. Aboy is the son of a
tent-revival evangelist and former owner/operator of a mobile foot massage
parlor for OTR truck drivers.
Red is battling the heavily-favored Jimmy Dale Sisco for the
privilege of representing the Lone Star State. Sisco is a wealthy banker and
drugstore cowboy who will remind Texans of my generation of a certain other
banker who battled a certain other woman for the office of governor, once upon
a time. As we say here, “He’s all hat and no cattle.” Also, everyone knows that
real cowboys wear Wranglers. Jimmy Dale Sisco wears Levis. The usual
shenanigans ensue: dirty tricks (y’all are familiar with the term “honey trap,”
yes?) vote buying, ballot stuffing, back room deals, dove hunting, debates and
rampant foot-in-mouth disease. As it turns out, there’s a mole in Red’s
campaign and loose lips not only sink ships – they get you shot at on ships.
At times The Purse
Bearer reads like a Chamber of Commerce listing; all of the Texas
trademarks are here: Neiman Marcus, Elgin Market barbecue, Luby’s Cafeteria,
the King Ranch, Sul Ross State University, Heart O’ Texas Speedway, Dr. Pepper
and Shiner Boch. At other times (and sometimes simultaneously) it would make a
great geography lesson for students in seventh grade Texas history class:
Possum Kingdom Lake on the plains, the black land prairie of Waxahachie, the
Llano River of the Hill Country, Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, shrimping
in the Gulf of Mexico. There are plenty of Texans who will get a kick out of
reading The Purse Bearer because
they’ll recognize every single thing in it, remember the events, and will have
visited, if not lived in, most of the locations.
I admit to being
flummoxed; I don’t know what to do with this book. Is it farce? If it’s
supposed to be farce then bravo – pitch perfect. The Purse Bearer is a (slightly) embellished mash-up of every
famously ridiculous thing that has happened in Texas politics during the last
fifty years. As such, you will recognize the set-up for almost every event and
know what’s coming next from a mile away. For those of you who are going to
jump on me with accusations that I lack a sense of the absurd you can check
that at the door. This book was never meant to be great literature and should
not be read or reviewed as such.
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Joe Holley |
I think The Purse Bearer is supposed to be a fond
skewering by an insider of the absurdity that is so often Texas politics. But I don’t
think it was meant to come off this thick with clichés and tiresome with
stereotypes. No one in this story pronounces the letter “g” at the end of a
word (someone actually says “rootin’ tootin’”) and everybody has two first
names (Jimmy Dale and Bobby Ray and Joe Frank and Jo Lynne). Wily T. has an
irritating habit of greeting people with, “Howdy-do.” I kept thinking that the Texas
portrayed in The Purse Bearer
certainly did exist but no longer. Granted, the setting is 34 years ago. Now it
feels like a caricature.
But then I began thinking about the last election cycle and
some of the yahoos we spawn down here. Loopy Louie Gohmert over in East Texas
thinks the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated Washington. Ted Cruz thinks
there’s a United Nations conspiracy to abolish golf. Rick Perry packs a pistol
on his morning jogs in Austin and thinks British Petroleum is God. Blake
Farenthold down in Corpus is most famous for photos of him wearing ducky
pajamas while posing with lingerie models. So I am torn. What if I just don’t
want it to be true?
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