@import "/css/main.css"; log in register newsletters advanced search ... November 2000 web Pray, Tell For the Record Safety Mysteries ... Best Bud features Airport 2000 Prayer Man of Letters The Searcher ... Judge Not dept Cooper's Town Almost Famous Cedric Benson Digital Docs ... Joys in the 'Hood misc Behind the Lines Texas Classics The Ex Files Face ... State Fare This month's Discuss this story in TexTalk Strange Days by Don Graham Read an excerpt When anybody asks me what Dallas was like during the time of the Kennedy assassination, I always refer them to one book: Edwin "Bud" Shrake's Strange Peaches the city was wild, lawless, and seedy, particularly downtown, with its strip joints, greasy spoons, and bars right out of a crime movie. Shrake's 1972 novel brings that world of big money, organized crime, right-wing politics, and prostitutes, all laced with booze and drugs, into sharp focus in the months leading up to November 22, 1963. The narrator, a tall, sardonic Texan named John Lee Wallace, is a TV actor, the star of Six Guns Across Texas. Based loosely on Shrake, who at that time was a well-known sportswriter in Dallas, John Lee drops out of stardom to return to Big D, where the parties never stop. His best friend is Buster Gregory, a wild-man photographer modeled on Shrake's friend Gary Cartwright (also a well-known sportswriter who is now a senior editor at | |
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