A Loose Herd of Texans

Mixing the profile with the personal essay, plain storytelling with reporting and the fanciful, Bill Porterfield, in this collection of short pieces, prances out a memorable cast of his characters from the Texas heartland.

"Loose herd" is about as tight a noose of definition as you can draw around their collective necks. Clarence of Green Mansions is a mystic with a two-thousand-year-old memory; J. D. Graham ekes out a living as owner of a general store in the dried-up crossroads of The Grove; Old Juan lives in a hole in the ground and defies anyone to bother him; Larry Bowman became famous by winning the jackpot on TV bowling; George White was a self-proclaimed genius until he picked his toe with a rusty knife and died of gangrene; John Waggoner, scion of great ranchers, has given up the New York stockbroker's life for stock raising; and Goyo Maldonado stopped going to church when he found the Stone That Cries Like a Child.

Obscure eccentrics and ordinary folk outnumber the rich and famous

Bill Porterfield became, in 1967, the first write to live and work at Paisano, the retreat for artists at the Texas Hill Country ranch of the late J. Frank Dobie. Two pieces in this collection, "Old Juan" and "Brother Nail's Magic," were first conceived and written at the ranch on Barton Creek. Porterfield has had a varied career as a reporter, magazine writer, and television commentator and producer. This is his third book.