Confessions of a Maddog: A Romp Through the High-Flying Texas Music and Literary Era of the Fifties to the Seventies

Rating:
Summary: Fun, Thoughtful, and Historical
Review: I had a fun time reading this book by Jay Milner. It's a really great chronicle of the exploits of a renegade group of Texas writers, musicians, artists, and politicos, as well a chronicle of Milner's own life as a novelist, university professor, and journalist.

Much of the fun in this book takes place in the mid 60s through mid 70s Texas, when Milner's running buddies include folks such as writers Gary Cartwright, Billie Lee Brammer, Larry L. King, and Edwin Shrake, former Texas Governor Ann Richards, Dallas Cowboy wide receiver turned novelist Peter Gent, and country music legends Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Kris Kristofferson.

Since this book is also autobiographical, it would be easy for Milner to embellish the high points of his life, and choose the frames from his internal "home movie" that would be in the book. Yet Milner does no such thing. He describes his life, and the activities surrounding it, with the objectivity of a trained "old school" journalist--either in the middle of a 60s or 70s scene involving sex, drugs, and country rock and roll--or in his honest and thoughtful analysis of what he considered his own inner demons.

Jay Milner's book is more than just a fun read. It is also a reliable history of a modern, creative period when artistic endeavors coming out of Texas began to be taken seriously by the rest of the world.

"Confessions of a Maddog" is an important work in this regard. I predict that it will be required reading in any college course involving the literature of the southwest for years to come.

Lee Leatherwood Austin, TX 31 March 01

Rating:
Summary: A heady trot thru the era of great fun loving Texans
Review: Milner has exceeded himself with this book. His compassionate record of the exploits and traumas of several of his friends as they hone their writing skills is superb. I refer you to page 222 for the most touching prose regarding one's journey up to and into the abyss of the dark night of one's soul. Billy Lee chose to go into the abyss and stay. Obviously Milner chose to take theever so rickety ladder out. His book is testimony to that choice.