The Gay Place

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and can see why it holds such an esteemed place in Texas letters, even though Texas is not mentioned once. Very Fitzgeraldian, only apropo as FSF was Billy Lee Brammer's favorite novelist. The book is all about its characters but i think what fascinates me most is the time period in which it takes place, the late 1950's, a time that was a-changing, when idealistic young political liberals were experimenting with new ideas, including beatnik/bohemian mores creeping in from underground. Mix in a dash of existential stream of consciousness and a dollop of psychoanalytic gobbledegook and it makes for quite a creative recipe. I was unsure about the form of the book, consisting as it does of three novellas, but in this case it works. The intro by William Broyles helps explain things, ergo i won't go into them here. I think i am more fascinated by the writer than the actual book. Reading it, I kept wondering if Brammer had read On The Road, which would have come out when he was writing this. I'm assuming he did. I would like to know more about Billy Brammer, a rising literary star of his time who never finished another book, then died early at age 48. Whatever happened to ya, Billy...ya coulda benna contenda.

This is a wonderful trilogy of novels on state politics. Though they seem disjointed, they are unified around the shadowy figure of the governor, who lurks in the background manipulating people and events down to the minutest detail. Thus, the immediate action taking place is a kind of epiphenomenon, all players that are living chess pieces in the governor's grand game, which is never fully explained: that is the real art of this novel, that it leaves far more unsaid than explicitely stated. The reader has to connect the dots. In the first novel, the governor has chosen a young legislator for an unaccustomed role in the spotlight: his life, like those of his cohorts, is a mess of alcohol and libertinism, but he is also struggling with his conscience to do the right thing. There are so many layers to what was really happening that it is impossible to explain, because the reader can only suspect what the governor is doing. The governor mixes the most intimate personal machinations, it appeared to me, with a legislative purpose and to depose (even destroy) a potential rival. It reminds me, of course, of LBJ, a politician without equal. One of the really interesting aspects is that the author describes many people just like GW Bush: priviledged, brash, debauched, and inadvertantly wondering what they should be doing. If you read this, you will understand GW Bush and his milieu much better - that is a sign of the timelessness of Bramer's achievement, truly a masterpiece. The second novel is similar: the governor's enemies are defeated, while he stages and manipulates events to suit whatever his purposes are. It is at times brutal and sad, yet funny and even uplifting, particularly in the scenes of introspection, when the characters have flashes of insight and empathy. The plot, which is only a vehicle to expose cryptic motvations, is the governor attempting to get an appointed young senator to run for a true popular mandate - he is a complex and flawed character, whom the governor sponsors out of respect but also to keep him in his pocket. It is splendidly ambiguous, as is all politics. The third involves similar personal struggles and an ineviablle passing of power, again, very realistic and down to earth. Marriages are destroyed, while politics plays in, and the characters wallow in existential angst while working very hard and yet hardly understanding why. It is a unique combination of themes, a genuine work of literature. One thing that really fascinated me was how similar this is to a Gore Vidal novel, a kind of comedy of the priviledged who inadvertently do politics while living their complicated lives. The political action is entirely off stage, but solved in their everyday actions and affairs and drunken parties. I have no doubt that Vidal carefullly studied the literary method that Bramer pioneered here, which resulted in his truly fine series of novels on American politics. Finally, tt really is where Bush came from,

Not just LBJ, this book is about politics and the ways of power. Very well written, insightful and lyric, it might be the best kept secret in political fiction. On a side note--man did people drink a lot then. Its amazing.Anyone who loves writing and politics will enjoy this book.

In the 500 plus pages of this remarkable trilogy, Billy Lee Brammer does more to explicate and evaluate American politics, especially Texas politics and even more especially, populist politics as practiced by Lyndon B.Johnson, than all the ponderous Caro-type analyses that weigh us down blur the color and cloy the flavor. More than a portrait of LBJ, the book is an artful depiction of the lure of politics and its terrible cost on those who pursue it. All this is conveyed with humor, sympathy and a clear-eyed vision of the American scene of the 60's.

A wonderful trilogy. This is a gem of a book, and desrves a much wider audience than it's received to this point (but then, it's only been in print for 37 years). Not only is it a masterful series of short novels about politics, it also does a wonderful job of capturing the feel of a time and place.