Prior Convictions: Stories from the Sixties

by Dave Hickey

An essay on writing accompanies nine stories about the elderly, two Mexican women confronting death, and drunken fraternity brothers

185 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1989

About the author

David Hickey (born circa 1939) is an American art and cultural critic. He has written for many American publications including Rolling Stone, Art News, Art in America, Artforum, Harper's Magazine, and Vanity Fair. He is currently Professor of English at the University of Nevada Las Vegas and Distinguished Professor of Criticism for the MFA Program in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of New Mexico.

Known for his arguments against academicism and in favor of the effects of rough-and-tumble free markets on art, his critical essays have been published in two volumes: The Invisible Dragon: Four Essays on Beauty (1993) and Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy (1997). In 2009, Hickey published a revised and updated version of The Invisible Dragon, adding an introduction that addressed changes in the art world since the book's original publication, as well as a new concluding essay. He has been the subject of profiles in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, U.S. News and World Report, Texas Monthly, and elsewhere. He was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, the so-called "genius grant."

Hickey graduated from Texas Christian University in 1961 and received his PhD from the University of Texas two years later. In 1989, SMU Press published Prior Convictions, a volume of his short fiction. He was owner-director of A Clean Well-Lighted Place, an art gallery in Austin, Texas and director of Reese Palley Gallery in New York. He has served as Executive Editor for Art in America magazine, as contributing editor to The Village Voice, as Staff Songwriter for Glaser Publications in Nashville and as Arts Editor for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

In 1994, he received the Frank Jewett Mather Award for art criticism from the College Art Association.[1] In 2003, he was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, sponsored by the Friends of the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries.

Reviews

[Delany · Rating 4 out of 5]

This guy is a fine writer. Had to buy the book second-hand on Amazon; apparently it is out of print or nearly so. But it deserves a wider audience; I would never have heard of him other than from another guy who should be better known -- a Florida musician named Grant Peeples. He named one of his albums "Prior Convictions" after the name of this book, says he was much influenced by Hickey's writing. I recommend them both to you -- the writer, and the musician.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author of this fine collection of short stories devotes the last 25 pages to an argument against the writing of fiction, claiming among other things that it leads both writer and reader away from actual human experience, a condition he regards as more or less immoral. And he's apparently remained true to his resolve. These stories, written in the 1960s and published 20 years later, seem to be the end of his fiction writing.

Too bad for us. These are terrific stories, set in Texas and written with grace, humor, and a solid gift for making enjoyable characters spring to life on the page. It's a men's world they inhabit, a world of frat boys, cowboys, good ole boys, a TV news director, and a Keats-loving minister. For me, he reaches near perfection in the last of them, "Three Days in a South Texas Spring," as he follows an ageing rancher on his yearly trip to town (San Antonio), where he remembers his life and ruminates on the eventual end of it.

Apparently still in print. An essential addition to any shelf of Texas literature.