Cover image of "Mr. Texas," a novel about Texas politics

To understand how the American political system is unraveling, look no further than the state of Texas. Although Republicans had been making gains since John Tower won LBJ’s seat in the United States Senate in 1961, it wasn’t until 2003 that the Texas Republican Party gained undisputed control of state government. And the result has been a veritable flood of Right-Wing legislation. Banning abortion. Shrinking the electoral rolls. Building another wall against Mexico. Gerrymandering. Allowing people to carry guns in public, and without a license. Showering Big Oil with tax breaks while climate change rains misery down on its citizens. And for a look behind the scenes at the state capitol, where these bills were enacted, there’s no better place to start than Lawrence Wright’s brilliant new satirical novel about Texas politics, Mr. Texas.

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

The legend of Sonny Lamb begins

Sonny Lamb is a down-on-his-luck West Texas rancher. He’s in such dire financial straits because of the drought that he’s forced to sell his breeding bull—only to buy it back at auction because he couldn’t bear to part with it. Then, unaccountably, his luck changes. Whether for better or worse, only time will tell.

When a fire breaks out on a neighboring ranch, Sonny leads the local volunteer fire department in a futile effort to put it out. But when the barn is engulfed by flames, Sonny sees that the neighbors’s young daughter has rushed inside to save her horse. And without thinking, Sonny runs in and carries her out through the flames. Then, as she struggles to go back in to save the horse, Sonny dashes back into the holocaust—and emerges riding the beast to safety. Television cameras capture his heroics, and suddenly Sonny is a legend. Soon, a man in a suit drives up in a Cadillac to Sonny’s home and talks him into running for the Texas House of Representatives to replace the incumbent who’d recently died. And thus begins the legend of Sonny Lamb.

Mr. Texas by Lawrence Wright (2023) 336 pages ★★★★★

Photo of opening day session at the Texas legislature, the setting for this novel about Texas politics
The Texas legislature on opening day for a new session. Image: Dallas Morning News

A story akin to “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” but funny

At first blush, Sonny doesn’t come across as very bright. Certainly, that’s what L. D. Sparks thinks. He’s the super-lobbyist from Austin who recruited Sonny, thinking he’d gain the vote he needs to gain a supermajority in the Texas House for his many unsavory clients. But it turns out that Sonny has a mind of his own. He works hard in the capitol, and he learns quickly. And after practicing speaking in public in the campaign L. D. geared up for him, Sonny has become an eloquent orator. Even worse from L. D.’s perspective, Sonny introduces a bill to desalinate the discharge from fracking wells and save West Texas land—at the expense of the frackers who are L. D.’s bread and butter.

Of course, Sonny’s bill stands no chance whatsoever. Big Bob Bigbee, the Speaker of the House, guarantees L. D. it will go nowhere. Soon, the bill disappears into the maw of committee machinations. But Sonny won’t give up. And you can guess where this is going.

“Parodying politicians who are parody-proof”

The fun in Mr. Texas lies not just in watching Sonny outwit his colleagues but in Wright’s “parodying politicians who are, in real life, parody-proof,” as Paul Begala writes in reviewing the novel for the New York Times. They’re a fascinating lot, these politicians. And, as the author notes in his acknowledgments, “Longtime Texans will no doubt note the resemblance of some [recognizable Texas politicians] to the characters inhabiting these pages.”

Big Bob, for example. As Wright remarks, “However flamboyant you may think my portrait of Big Bob Bigbee may be, I assure you that Bob Bullock exceeded him in every particular.” The one-time leader of the Texas Senate when Democrats ruled, Bullock’s “personal journey through Texas politics was a spectacle that captivated the state. His many marriages and his struggles with alcohol were always in full view. He survived scandals that should have ruined him. But in his last years in office, finally sober, he redeemed himself.” As does Big Bob, in his own way.

It’s hard to imagine that anyone could top Lawrence Wright in telling a story like this. Because in one form or another—including a movie script, a short-lived musical, an aborted HBO series, and a musical podcast that never aired—Wright has been telling it for forty years. And he is obviously a close and insightful observer of Texas politics.

About the author

Photo of Lawrence Wright, author of this novel about Texas politics
Lawrence Wright in 2018. Image: Wikipedia

Texas-based author and journalist Lawrence Wright has been a staff writer for the New Yorker magazine since 1992. He has written eleven books of nonfiction and three novels as well as a play. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 and Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief are his best-known works. They account for the lion’s share of the many literary awards he has won for his work.

Wright was born in 1947 in Oklahoma City. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and taught English at the American University in Cairo, where he gained master’s degree in applied linguistics. Wright lives in Austin, Texas. He has at least one adult son, whom he mentions prominently in the acknowledgements to Mr. Texas.

I’ve reviewed two previous books by Lawrence Wright. One is nonfiction, which was brilliant, the other a novel written during the COVID-19 pandemic, which I enjoyed less.

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