Texas Blood

July 3, 2017
Hodge (The Mendacity of Hope), national editor of the Intercept, embarks on a singular journey to rediscover his borderland-Texas roots, telling stories of his adventures as a youthful ranch hand and recollecting memories from his family’s land. While reminiscing, Hodge also retraces the path of his distant ancestors on their own treks through other parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Arizona before settling in the arid Texas backcountry. Texas’s complicated, multicultural history becomes part of Hodge’s narrative; ancient pictographs, battles between Comanches and settlers, and the demoralizing effects of the drug war all feature in this heartbreaking and mesmerizing story. Hodge’s casual tone possesses an easy charm, with each anecdote sparking deeper dives into historical and cultural issues that reveal how Texas’s violent past continues to affect its present. Hodge routinely puts his life into the hands of others—though occasionally he comes across as patronizing toward people he encounters—including border agents and a spry, impish guide who aids Hodge in bearing witness to ceremonies at a religious shrine. Hodge combines a journalist’s eye with a native son’s love to give readers clear insight into southwestern Texas’s past, present, and future. Maps & photos.

August 15, 2017
A native son takes a loping tour of the Lone Star State and the paths to, through, and from it.Intercept national editor Hodge (The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism, 2010), a former editor of the Oxford American and Harper's, grew up down on the Rio Grande and learned how to handle a rope and a six-shooter, the whole package. He got out at 18, and, he writes, "I'm still gone." That kind of talk can get a person branded as a carpetbagger, but the author has long lines of history and blood tying him to the state over a couple of centuries, exploring which is the point of this somewhat shapeless but always interesting ramble across the state and points beyond, from the pioneer trails of Missouri to the gone-west paths across New Mexico and Arizona to California. Some of Hodge's explorations are bookish: he's a huge fan of Cormac McCarthy, wandering around the vicinity of Del Rio contemplating No Country for Old Men and other "messages from lost worlds, artifacts of vanished histories." Elsewhere, Hodge calls on the Border Patrol, ponders the lost ways of the Comanche Trail and the ever speculative argonauts, and visits the grave of Sam Houston's Cherokee wife and a much-contested shrine constantly beset by what one defender calls "the Satanics from Juarez." Hodge's suggestion that the "official" history of Texas, whatever that might be, excludes many of its players, from Native Americans to French buccaneers and German freethinkers, isn't quite accurate; no modern writer on Texas dares overlook them, and even the old-timers along the lines of J. Frank Dobie and John Graves recognized how diverse Texas was and is. Still, Hodge does a nice job of relating some of those lesser-known stories. Of a piece with revisionist Westerns a la Larry McMurtry and Richard White and of much interest to readers along the border.

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September 1, 2017

Seasoned journalist and author Hodge (The Mendacity of Hope) presents an extraordinary account of his Texan heritage by exploring his family's deep roots within the Lone Star state. Fully in touch with his romantic sensibilities, Hodge traverses the length and breadth of Texas's cultural history to discover its intertwining past and present. With confidence and verve, he touches on myriad topics of interest, such as how practical ranchers differ from idealist environmentalists, how early Ute and Comanche successes in the Southwest led to later Texan triumphs in contesting Mexico, and how high-technology satellite and drone surveillance systems are not a panacea for modern border patrol efforts. VERDICT A fascinating and enthralling view of the vibrant origins and ongoing cultural development of the author's home state. Highly recommended as a tour de force examination of an often cantankerous, perplexingly humorous American history and lifeways.--Nathan Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., Laramie, WY

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2017
The Borderlands, delineated by the current borders of southwest Texas, New Mexico, and Mexico, have long been characterized as a wild, woolly, and violent no-man's-land. Hodge, a journalist and former editor of Harper's, was born and raised there, leaving his ancestral home at 18. Ever since, he has felt drawn back to and even haunted by the land and its culture as well as his family's long connection to it, and he explores many aspects of the region in this often-fascinating blend of memoir and history. Revisiting the area, often accompanied by his wife and sons, Hodge recounts his youth working on his family ranch and working for hire herding sheep and goats while wildly immersing himself in the local drug culture. He offers detailed descriptions and knowledgeable perspectives on topics as varied as the violence of the conquistadors and the depredations of the Apaches against other Native Americans. The result is an absorbing and often-disturbing examination of a harsh land where violence seems almost natural.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)