Musical Book by Larry L. King and Peter Masterson. Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall. Characters: 13 male, 14 female, extras. Unit set This happy go lucky view of small town vice and statewide political side stepping recounts the good times and the demise of the Chicken Ranch, known since the 1850s as one of the better pleasure palaces in all of Texas. Governors, senators, mayors and even victorious college football teams frequent Miss Mona's cozy bordello until that puritan neme

In a play that is realistic, sometimes humorous, and always profoundly moving, Larry L. King deals with the problems of aging and our mistaken stereotypes and impersonal treatment of the elderly. Cowboy Bennett, long a resident of the Golden Shadows Senior Citizens Home, is a man with not only memories of the past but also dreams of the future for himself and his companions--especially the charming widow, Flora Harper. At the play's end, you'll want to stand and yell, "Ya! Ya!" with Cowboy. Best known as coauthor of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, Larry L. King as both essayist and play-wright consistently demonstrates an uncanny ability to use Texas settings and characters successfully to explore universal themes. Author of five plays, one novel, and eleven nonfiction books (including Warning: Writer at Work and Larry L. King: A Writer's Life in Letters, Or, Reflections in a Bloodshot Eye, both from TCU Press), King has won numerous awards for his writing, held a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, and has taught at the university level. The Golden Shadows Old West Museum is based on Michael Blackman's short story, which was named the Best Short Fiction of 1973 by the Texas Institute of Letters. The text of the short story is included in this edition. Cover drawing by Pat Oliphant.

Edwin "Bud" Shrake is one of the most intriguing literary talents to emerge from Texas. He has written vividly in fiction and nonfiction about everything from the early days of the Texas Republic to the making of the atomic bomb. His real gift has been to capture the Texas Zeitgeist. Legendary Harper's Magazine editor Willie Morris called Shrake's essay "Land of the Permanent Wave" one of the two best pieces Morris ever published during his tenure at the magazine. High praise, indeed, when one considers that Norman Mailer and Seymour Hersh were just two of the luminaries featured at Harper's during Morris's reign.

This anthology is the first to present and explore Shrake's writing completely, including his journalism, fiction, and film work, both published and previously unpublished. The collection makes innovative use of his personal papers and letters to explore the connections between his journalism and his novels, between his life and his art. An exceptional behind-the-scenes look at his life, Land of the Permanent Wave reveals and reveres the life and calling of a writer whose legacy continues to influence and engage readers and writers nearly fifty years into his career.

Bobby Baker was a small-town southern boy when he arrived in Washington in 1943, but he had a sure sense of political clout. He soon knew which senator wanted what done—almost before the senator knew himself. Senator Robert Kerr was the first instrument of Bobby Baker’s rise. He found an even more powerful sponsor in Lyndon Johnson, and he rose with Johnson until no doors were closed to him. He tells here a unique insider’s story of the always fascinating ways of power in the Congress of the United States.