Monday procrastination roundup: Before ‘Tiger King’
I knew about Joe Exotic’s big cat sanctuary long before Netflix featured him in a docuseries (one of their lesser crime docs, in my opinion) called Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness. At various points in my life, I’ve lived within 140 miles and again less than 300 miles away from his former home and private zoo.
I never visited the Tiger King’s territory, but I remember seeing his billboards.
I didn’t know about most of the strange goings-on near Wynnewood, Okla., before the Netflix special was released as stay-at-home policies were implemented nearly nationwide.
That’s because I missed this Texas Monthly article from June of last year that breaks it all down.
Though, if Joe reads it, I’m sure he’d say it went way too easy on that b— Carole Baskin.
Keeping it real
Authenticity in crime thrillers is not easy, especially in police procedurals.
For those who want a quick checklist on what your law enforcement characters — or those opposing them — should NOT do, this CrimeReads post will get you started.
Another stellar West Texas novel
Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut, Valentine (Harper, March 31), which hit Number 2 on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller list on April 18 and spent a total of three weeks in the Top 10, was a literary work based in 1976 Odessa.
This month we have The Illusion of Leaving by Jeannette Brown, which releases Friday from Texas Review Press. This literary novel set on the South Plains in Silver Falls, a fictional small town near Lubbock.
The review from Ruthie Jones on Lone Star Literary Life ends by saying “Brown accurately captures the blistering West Texas heat that saps the moisture from tender skin and from the wide-open spaces, providing an arid yet exquisite backdrop to one woman’s difficult journey of accepting her past and embracing the life she was never meant to leave.”
Texans win four Pulitzers
Four Texans were awarded Pulitzer Prizes in poetry, history, biography and editorial writing: Texas Writers Bring Home 2020 Pulitzer Prizes (Lone Star Literary Life)
