J. Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind

by Steven L. Davis

The first Texas-based writer to gain national attention, J. Frank Dobie proved that authentic writing springs easily from the native soil of Texas and the Southwest. In best-selling books such as Tales of Old-Time Texas, Coronado's Children, and The Longhorns, Dobie captured the Southwest's folk history, which was quickly disappearing as the United States became ever more urbanized and industrial. Renowned as "Mr. Texas," Dobie paradoxically has almost disappeared from view--a casualty of changing tastes in literature and shifts in social and political attitudes since the 1960s.

In this lively biography, Steven L. Davis takes a fresh look at a J. Frank Dobie whose "liberated mind" set him on an intellectual journey that culminated in Dobie becoming a political liberal who fought for labor, free speech, and civil rights well before these causes became acceptable to most Anglo Texans. Tracing the full arc of Dobie's life (1888-1964), Davis shows how Dobie's insistence on "free-range thinking" led him to such radical actions as calling for the complete integration of the University of Texas during the 1940s, as well as taking on governors, senators, and the FBI (which secretly investigated him) as Texas's leading dissenter during the McCarthy era.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction

297 pages, ebook

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Steven L. Davis is a PEN USA award-winning author of four books and the editor of two more. His new book, co-written with Bill Minutaglio, is THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon & the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD.

He is the current President of the Texas Institute of Letters, founded in 1936 with an elected membership consisting of the state’s most respected writers. He is considered "one of Texas' leading scholars of its indigenous culture" and his writing has been described as "lively," "groundbreaking," and "illuminating."

His previous books include Dallas 1963, co-written with Bill Minutaglio and winner of the PEN USA Award for Research Nonfiction. He is also the author of the acclaimed books, J. Frank Dobie: A Liberated Mind and Texas Literary Outlaws: Six Writers in the Sixties and Beyond.

He is a longtime curator at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University in San Marcos, which holds the literary papers of many major authors. He has developed and curated over 30 exhibitions at the Wittliff. He has been a Series Editor for the University of Texas Press and helped develop several books for publication. He is the editor of Land of the Permanent Wave: An Edwin "Bud" Shrake Reader and co-editor of Lone Star Sleuths: Mystery-Detective Fiction in Texas.

He is married to the artist and historian Georgia Ruiz Davis and lives with his family in the Texas Hill Country.

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a native Texan or even if you just live in Texas, you have probably heard of J. Frank Dobie. Have you read any of his work? Probably not.

Steven L Davis introduces us to the young Dobie, the UT professor Dobie and the column-writing Dobie: three different personages. But then we all evolve; our positions, politics, opinions, desires change over time. I would have liked to know him, hear his story-telling voice. And I would have loved to listen in on his discussions with Roy Bedichek and Walter Prescott Webb and Philospohers's Rock at Barton Springs in Austin.

In one instance I must disagree with him. Horton Foote was a wonderful playwright very much in tune with his own part of Texas. He just didn't write about mustangs, longhorns or coyotes.

I admire both Dobie and Foote.

[Cindy Bonner · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a treasure J. Frank Dobie was to Texas literature, and what a treasure this biography is to his memory. Fair and concise, everything you might want to know about this writer and man who was a mover and shaker in the days he was alive and influencing Texas Letters. So much of what is revealed in this biography is still so pertinent to the climate today in Texas education, Texas politics, and Texas literature. This book is rich in anecdotes and colorful quotations from Dobie himself, as illustrated on a note written to a student: "I hope you'll always be able to eat when you are hungry -- and that you will be very hungry; that you'll always be able to drink when you are thirsty -- and that you will often raise a powerful thirst; and that you'll really live until you die." How lucky Texas was to have had such a great man, and how lucky we are to have Steven Davis to remind us.

[Christine Granados · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked how Davis didn't sugarcoat or ignore Dobie's racist leanings and other faults. The book helped me to appreciate Dobie's contribution to Texas letters.