At the height of the sixties, a group of Texas writers stood apart from 
Texas' conservative establishment. Calling themselves the Mad Dogs,
these six writers—Bud Shrake, Larry L. King, Billy Lee Brammer, Gary
Cartwright, Dan Jenkins, and Peter Gent—closely observed the effects
of the Vietnam War; the Kennedy assassination; the rapid population
shift from rural to urban environments; Lyndon Johnson's rise to
national prominence; the Civil Rights Movement; Tom Landry and the
Dallas Cowboys; Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, the new Outlaw
music scene; the birth of a Texas film industry; Texas Monthly
magazine; the flowering of "Texas Chic"; and Ann Richards' election
as governor.

    In Texas Literary Outlaws, Steven L. Davis makes extensive use
of untapped literary archives to weave a fascinating portrait of writers
who came of age during a period of rapid social change. With Davis's
eye for vibrant detail and a broad historical perspective, Texas
Literary Outlaws moves easily between H. L. Hunt's Dallas mansion
and the West Texas oil patch, from the New York literary salon of
Elaine's to the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin, from Dennis
Hopper on a film set in Mexico to Jerry Jeff Walker crashing a party
at Princeton University. The Mad Dogs were less interested in 
Texas' mythic past than in the world they knew firsthand—a place 
of fast-growing cities and hard-edged political battles.

    The Mad Dogs crashed headfirst into the sixties, and their 
legendary excesses have often overshadowed their literary 
production. Davis never shies away from criticism in this no-
holds-barred account, yet he also shows how the Mad Dogs' 
rambunctious personae have deflected a true understanding of 
their deeper aims. Despite their popular image, the Mad Dogs 
were deadly serious as they turned their gaze on their home 
state, and they chronicled Texas culture with daring, wit, and 
sophistication. 

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STEVEN L. DAVIS received his master's degree in Southwestern
studies from Texas State University–San Marcos in 1995. He has
appeared often in Southwestern American Literature and Texas
Books in Review. He currently serves as the assistant curator of
the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University–
San Marcos, which houses the literary papers of Shrake, King,
Brammer, and Cartwright.