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Heck, Texas
Somewhere deep in East Texas, the hunt is on, fueled by self-hate, cough syrup, white whales, massive zits, freakshows, madness, dead pets, lost children, killer coffee, rats, Satan, good times, bad people, vomit, dementia, diarrhea, sex, and clowns. Your favorite brand of disease is back in stock. Welcome to Heck, Texas.
- GenresHorror
140 pages, Paperback
Published September 4, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
September 4, 2020
If there ever needed to be another reason to avoid Texas, it was this brutally honest depiction. Written in an unconventional format, I found the flow easy to ride. I could anticipate a climax of emotions and was still surprised when they came. Tex, this is beautiful. *tear*
My only dislike was the last section, but that is a personal distaste for reading scenes.
Thank you Atlatl Press for a gifted copy in exchange of an honest review.
My only dislike was the last section, but that is a personal distaste for reading scenes.
Thank you Atlatl Press for a gifted copy in exchange of an honest review.
Want to Read
April 25, 2022I never read this book. It's on my wish list. A glitch gave it one star, but I didn't.
December 30, 2021
The five stars are unimportant. If your looking at this book you’re deep inside the small (micro) independent press catalogs.
It often feels like an author working things out for themselves before taking the next step. But it still has a great amount of literary value with its unrelenting, yet hysterically funny, diatribes, vicious humor, and the third act play focused on the daily goings of Ishmael. He is of the uncouth variety, viciously beats a man un order to steal his bike. And yet still I laughed. I laughed a lot.
Tex Gresham is on my radar. This was sad, ugly, funny, mostly true stuff.
It often feels like an author working things out for themselves before taking the next step. But it still has a great amount of literary value with its unrelenting, yet hysterically funny, diatribes, vicious humor, and the third act play focused on the daily goings of Ishmael. He is of the uncouth variety, viciously beats a man un order to steal his bike. And yet still I laughed. I laughed a lot.
Tex Gresham is on my radar. This was sad, ugly, funny, mostly true stuff.
January 1, 2022
When a book leaves you going...fuck, I wish I wrote that! You can either be an asshole and try distance yourself from it, out of ego, or own up to loving it and wishing you wrote it in a big LOUD PUBLIC MANNER!
This is what I have done, though I may still be an egotistical asshole.
Buy the book. Enjoy it. Laugh with and at it.
I loved it.
A sublime non-novel.
A frenzied, hyperactive punch to the literary values that are slowly devolving in literature. So they can evolve.
Tex Gresham is a skilled humorist.
His prose is punchy, detailed, capturing many voices and their intensities and oddnesses, without doing much narrative work at all to make us reel, recoil, guffaw and fart, I mean, excrete, I mean, rejoice in his playfulness.
It is also so apt and honest a read. A real middle finger to almost everything wrong with society, and specifically a hilariously uncomfortable irreverent look at racism, and the heritability of views and traits...that you can't get away from.
Tex puts the real in unreality.
A hilarious scathing satire on society and a (warped) form of Texas (the real or unreal Texas, don't ask me I'm British?)
Sensational.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars and a 💦
This is what I have done, though I may still be an egotistical asshole.
Buy the book. Enjoy it. Laugh with and at it.
I loved it.
A sublime non-novel.
A frenzied, hyperactive punch to the literary values that are slowly devolving in literature. So they can evolve.
Tex Gresham is a skilled humorist.
His prose is punchy, detailed, capturing many voices and their intensities and oddnesses, without doing much narrative work at all to make us reel, recoil, guffaw and fart, I mean, excrete, I mean, rejoice in his playfulness.
It is also so apt and honest a read. A real middle finger to almost everything wrong with society, and specifically a hilariously uncomfortable irreverent look at racism, and the heritability of views and traits...that you can't get away from.
Tex puts the real in unreality.
A hilarious scathing satire on society and a (warped) form of Texas (the real or unreal Texas, don't ask me I'm British?)
Sensational.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ stars and a 💦
May 12, 2022
Exceptionally well written, immensely original, hilarious fantastic I absolutely loved it I will read anything Tex writes from this moment on
November 4, 2020
Heck, Texas is not a novel. The cover even says so. It’s a fairly short work of fiction by Tex Gresham, who also wrote the excellent nonfiction piece “Matchstick 66” published in
F(r)iction #15
. The book is 125 pages of experimental fiction, so I’m pretty sure that the “not a novel” description excludes novellas as well. Heck, Texas is more like a joke book. A very bleak, disturbing, and yet creative joke book. There isn’t much in the way of narrative cohesion. Instead, the book uses a series of vignettes to illustrate life in heck-on-Earth, Texas. Based on geographical locations in the book, Heck, TX seems to be between Houston and the Louisiana boarder.
The text is generally chaotic, with the rules of writing and style completely thrown aside. Capital letters and punctuation are for the birds, while ampersands abound. Brief lines of verse break up the onslaught of violence and abuse in each vignette. Occasionally, a photograph or drawing will break up the text, while the different typefaces for the vignettes keep the reader aware that the stories are disconnected in time and space.
The book is divided into three sections. The first two are entirely made up of these disjointed vignettes. The third is the closest Heck, Texas comes to a conventional plot and character arc. This section is written like a screenplay, where a madman named Ishmael journeys through town burglarizing houses, screwing with pedestrians, haunting storage units, and evading authority.
Most characters exist on the fringes of society: they’re poor, they’re ugly, they’re addicts, they’re suffering. The way they’re described is as though they are unwritten song titles from the deranged southern metal band The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza: “this is in the back of his car––kick drum with torn head, empty pack of newports, nine unused spiral notebooks, book about the coulthurst murders in alaska, & a gallon of eggnog.”
Most of the stories are tragic, and the ones that aren’t end with a cruel joke at the character’s expense. For example, one character is at a club one night and slips into an existential crisis. His stream of consciousness covers meaning, solipsism, beauty, and living in the present. He comes to some profound realizations. Once he’s finished rambling, a stripper asks him, “Okay, but like do you want a lapdance or not?”
It’s a foul-mouthed book, with plenty of offensive language and slurs. But the bad language illustrates the closed-minded and ignorant people that inhabit Heck, TX. I’m reminded of Mid90s, a 2018 film that took some flak for using homophobic slurs. The movie depicted a specific youth culture and time where what is now considered hate speech was common vernacular. In the same way, Heck, Texas is simply holding up a mirror to the worst parts of Americana.
I give Gresham a lot of credit for a book this nasty being his debut. If you’re the type of person that can find humor in the macabre, if there’s a streak of misanthropy in you, if you’ve been desensitized to violence by a supremely violent culture, then this book might be for you. If you’re easily offended, if you’re an empath who feels all pain, and you don’t enjoy immature toilet humor, then this book definitely ain’t for you. The seventh page of the book even ends with a footnoted warning: “to continue with more shit like this, turn the page[.] to stop reading shit like this, burn the book[.]”
I like Heck, Texas for the same reason I like the music of Father John Misty. Both completely own their shit. Josh Tillman as Father John Misty is a self-absorbed asshole know-it-all. He indulges that side of himself and owns his flaws, giving honesty and authenticity to his music. Tex Gresham has written a book that is so crass and vile in a political climate where making racy jokes is not welcome, but he also owns what he likes. He finds humor in pain, in body horror, and reminds readers that what is taboo does not have to be off-limits. A lot of readers will only see the offensive stories in this book at face value. They won’t spend time trying to understand why someone wrote such a disturbing comedy: Heck, TX exists all over the United States.
Eight years ago, my house caught on fire. When I walked inside the next day and saw how wrecked my living room was, I blurted out laughing and disturbed the insurance agent who was walking around with my landlord. Heck, Texas is like that. In a world, a town, a culture so sick, all you can do is laugh. Heck, Texas is, as Anthony Fantano once so eloquently said, “the feel terrible hit of the summer.”
Originally published at FrictionLit
The text is generally chaotic, with the rules of writing and style completely thrown aside. Capital letters and punctuation are for the birds, while ampersands abound. Brief lines of verse break up the onslaught of violence and abuse in each vignette. Occasionally, a photograph or drawing will break up the text, while the different typefaces for the vignettes keep the reader aware that the stories are disconnected in time and space.
The book is divided into three sections. The first two are entirely made up of these disjointed vignettes. The third is the closest Heck, Texas comes to a conventional plot and character arc. This section is written like a screenplay, where a madman named Ishmael journeys through town burglarizing houses, screwing with pedestrians, haunting storage units, and evading authority.
Most characters exist on the fringes of society: they’re poor, they’re ugly, they’re addicts, they’re suffering. The way they’re described is as though they are unwritten song titles from the deranged southern metal band The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza: “this is in the back of his car––kick drum with torn head, empty pack of newports, nine unused spiral notebooks, book about the coulthurst murders in alaska, & a gallon of eggnog.”
Most of the stories are tragic, and the ones that aren’t end with a cruel joke at the character’s expense. For example, one character is at a club one night and slips into an existential crisis. His stream of consciousness covers meaning, solipsism, beauty, and living in the present. He comes to some profound realizations. Once he’s finished rambling, a stripper asks him, “Okay, but like do you want a lapdance or not?”
It’s a foul-mouthed book, with plenty of offensive language and slurs. But the bad language illustrates the closed-minded and ignorant people that inhabit Heck, TX. I’m reminded of Mid90s, a 2018 film that took some flak for using homophobic slurs. The movie depicted a specific youth culture and time where what is now considered hate speech was common vernacular. In the same way, Heck, Texas is simply holding up a mirror to the worst parts of Americana.
I give Gresham a lot of credit for a book this nasty being his debut. If you’re the type of person that can find humor in the macabre, if there’s a streak of misanthropy in you, if you’ve been desensitized to violence by a supremely violent culture, then this book might be for you. If you’re easily offended, if you’re an empath who feels all pain, and you don’t enjoy immature toilet humor, then this book definitely ain’t for you. The seventh page of the book even ends with a footnoted warning: “to continue with more shit like this, turn the page[.] to stop reading shit like this, burn the book[.]”
I like Heck, Texas for the same reason I like the music of Father John Misty. Both completely own their shit. Josh Tillman as Father John Misty is a self-absorbed asshole know-it-all. He indulges that side of himself and owns his flaws, giving honesty and authenticity to his music. Tex Gresham has written a book that is so crass and vile in a political climate where making racy jokes is not welcome, but he also owns what he likes. He finds humor in pain, in body horror, and reminds readers that what is taboo does not have to be off-limits. A lot of readers will only see the offensive stories in this book at face value. They won’t spend time trying to understand why someone wrote such a disturbing comedy: Heck, TX exists all over the United States.
Eight years ago, my house caught on fire. When I walked inside the next day and saw how wrecked my living room was, I blurted out laughing and disturbed the insurance agent who was walking around with my landlord. Heck, Texas is like that. In a world, a town, a culture so sick, all you can do is laugh. Heck, Texas is, as Anthony Fantano once so eloquently said, “the feel terrible hit of the summer.”
Originally published at FrictionLit
May 30, 2020
I was given a copy of this book in exchange for a complimentary review.
At first glance, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Heck, Texas. Within the first 25 pages I knew this was going to be one of the weirdest rides I’d sat through. As a former Texan, I was eager to see what exactly this short book was all about.
Heck Texas is a very experimental book brimming with grunge, drugs, and well, Texas. The best way to put it is if Hunter S. Thompson and William Burroughs had a baby. It has the rage of Thompson and the experimental fuel of Burroughs. I fell in love with the writing of this book. Like it says in the synopsis, it’s a book of self-hate, zits, whales, clowns and so much more. There’s a few moments that get a little gross, so content warning if that’s not your thing.
I do wish there was a bit more cohesion to the book, and some of the handwritten sequences and screenshots were a touch hard to read. Overall, the moment you open this book, you’ll be thrown in a world of deep-fried Texas grunge and everything else that is unholy.
Heck, Texas is a weird book, man. I love it, it’s fuckin’ weird. 4 out of 5 stars. If you’re interested in experiment fiction about what a shit show Texas can be sometimes, I’d say pick it up when it comes out this September. The book will be released through Atlatl Press.
At first glance, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of Heck, Texas. Within the first 25 pages I knew this was going to be one of the weirdest rides I’d sat through. As a former Texan, I was eager to see what exactly this short book was all about.
Heck Texas is a very experimental book brimming with grunge, drugs, and well, Texas. The best way to put it is if Hunter S. Thompson and William Burroughs had a baby. It has the rage of Thompson and the experimental fuel of Burroughs. I fell in love with the writing of this book. Like it says in the synopsis, it’s a book of self-hate, zits, whales, clowns and so much more. There’s a few moments that get a little gross, so content warning if that’s not your thing.
I do wish there was a bit more cohesion to the book, and some of the handwritten sequences and screenshots were a touch hard to read. Overall, the moment you open this book, you’ll be thrown in a world of deep-fried Texas grunge and everything else that is unholy.
Heck, Texas is a weird book, man. I love it, it’s fuckin’ weird. 4 out of 5 stars. If you’re interested in experiment fiction about what a shit show Texas can be sometimes, I’d say pick it up when it comes out this September. The book will be released through Atlatl Press.
September 28, 2020
A bold, brutal montage of an American life. Ten stars out of five.
July 7, 2020
I received a copy of this from the publisher for a fair and honest review. To be honest the description was what really had me intrigued. I even thought this was going to be a great mix of punk-ish poetry, and weird. strange scenes....until I got almost halfway in and ...Not to get sidetracked but I had to look up the author on Twitter to see if what he wrote was how he felt. I started to dislike this book when it came up with racist remarks and jokes. Plus the overuse of gay slurs (you know the one that starts with an F and ends with a T). Maybe this just isn't for me, and I really wanted to like this but given the stuff I mentioned I cannot recommend this.
July 3, 2020
made me feel stuff
November 28, 2020
HECK, TEXAS is a grim, hilarious, non-novel, a patchwork of miscellaneous short stories, exchanges, portraits, and scripts all tied together by Texas. Mostly Jasper, Texas. The overall result is mostly tasteless.
I see a lot of reviews of indie works talk about heartstrings. Tex Gresham doesn’t tug at your heartstrings, he severs them and bleeds you dry like a slab of venison. The last thing you hear is a joke about cum. The last thing you see is a terrifying zit reflected back at you.
Part of me wants to see what Tex will do with a full novel. The other part of me, the better part, wants to see what he could do with a movie. After reading the scripts in HECK, the sick part of my brain wonders what he would do with actual living human beings at his disposal?
I see a lot of reviews of indie works talk about heartstrings. Tex Gresham doesn’t tug at your heartstrings, he severs them and bleeds you dry like a slab of venison. The last thing you hear is a joke about cum. The last thing you see is a terrifying zit reflected back at you.
Part of me wants to see what Tex will do with a full novel. The other part of me, the better part, wants to see what he could do with a movie. After reading the scripts in HECK, the sick part of my brain wonders what he would do with actual living human beings at his disposal?
September 27, 2020
Excellent stream of consciousness. Thoughts like “wow did he just say that?” While, at times, thinking “I get it”…loathing to admit that we’ve had feelings, thoughts similar to this, right? Maybe not as brutal but isn’t that why we took it to the end? Its like you get on the bus and, as you’re looking out the window, you think ‘wow, am I on the right bus?’ because you’re seeing areas of town that you particularly didn’t want to see but are intrigued and can’t stop looking, no longer caring. Uh yeah. And if you found some of it offensive – maybe you just didn’t get it. Maybe its best that you stay in the shallow end.
November 12, 2020
It’s not often that I’m left speechless after reading a book, but when I was done with HECK, TEXAS I had to kinda stare at the wall for a few minutes. What the hell did I just read?
This isn’t a novel, and it says so right on the cover. It’s more of a stream of consciousness collection of poetry, scenes, ramblings, notes and profanities, all loosely connected. It feels like something that Hunter S. Thompson would have written while goaded on by Harry Crews. But is it any good? Well, I honestly don’t know if it’s good or bad. All I know is that it’s an *experience* and I LOVED IT.
if you like gritty and strange, you’ll dig this. I sure did!
This isn’t a novel, and it says so right on the cover. It’s more of a stream of consciousness collection of poetry, scenes, ramblings, notes and profanities, all loosely connected. It feels like something that Hunter S. Thompson would have written while goaded on by Harry Crews. But is it any good? Well, I honestly don’t know if it’s good or bad. All I know is that it’s an *experience* and I LOVED IT.
if you like gritty and strange, you’ll dig this. I sure did!
May 24, 2021
Jesus, what the hell is wrong with Tex(as)?!
I loved this book, a weird, tumbling collage of prose, poetry, photography and "found" items. It's all over the place stylistically and emotionally - laugh-out-loud funny one moment and either morbidly depressing or genuinely touching the next - but then I guess so is life.
On the cover it says "NOT A NOVEL" and although this is true in some ways I think there's a lot of younger writers at the moment redefining what a novel can be, so I don't know that I *completely* agree.
It's a quick, fucked-up read that I'd recommend to anyone with a black/bleak sense of humour, and I'm looking forward to Gresham's next book SUNFLOWER later this year.
I loved this book, a weird, tumbling collage of prose, poetry, photography and "found" items. It's all over the place stylistically and emotionally - laugh-out-loud funny one moment and either morbidly depressing or genuinely touching the next - but then I guess so is life.
On the cover it says "NOT A NOVEL" and although this is true in some ways I think there's a lot of younger writers at the moment redefining what a novel can be, so I don't know that I *completely* agree.
It's a quick, fucked-up read that I'd recommend to anyone with a black/bleak sense of humour, and I'm looking forward to Gresham's next book SUNFLOWER later this year.
September 12, 2020
a book like none other. if you’re from a podunk town, a place like Hell, a place composed of damned and dead bastards, a place that kills the innocent, a place that lets none leave unscathed, then welcome home. this book should be read by every person so they can see America’s heart. because this is it, really, America's heart.
from an artistic stand point, incredible. like a collage of forms. poems, excerpts, art, monologues, etc, etc. little bit of everything masterfully crafted into a single image. crafted into 400 ideas. 1 idea. you get it?
in summary: read it, coward.
from an artistic stand point, incredible. like a collage of forms. poems, excerpts, art, monologues, etc, etc. little bit of everything masterfully crafted into a single image. crafted into 400 ideas. 1 idea. you get it?
in summary: read it, coward.
October 9, 2020
A hallucinatory procession of malignant vignettes that disturb and excite an unhealthy fascination. Equally funny and guttingly hopeless, Greshman presents a portrait of a small Texas town told through scraps of vagrant fantasies, a rag-and-bone folklore playing on repeat in the run-down theater of some twisted mind stuck in the horrors of its own formation.
July 24, 2023
Found this randomly in a book store, sounded weird enough to grab my attention. I'm not exactly sure what I just read. It made me laugh out loud in some moments. It's definitely original, I think my 20something self would've enjoyed it more.
Read
September 10, 2025on the cover it says “not a novel” and that is true. this is a scatter of atmospheric vignettes and moments and gathered information taking place in a wicked part of texas. this is twisted! and gross. but also very funny. enjoyed it? it’s something to decipher that is for sure
October 3, 2020
What the hell is this? An episode of South Park? Gummo? A John Waters movie? Some layer of Pandemonium that is only accessible via the state of Texas?
I dug it
I dug it
May 15, 2021
Got blasted. Read this. Had a blast!
August 17, 2021
Hilarious and quick to read.
May 4, 2023
Some interesting ideas and structure, similar in some ways to Derek McCormacks “castle faggot”, but just a lot more cheap and not really giving anything new
January 15, 2023
Tex is a strange sumbitch. Liked the hell out of Heck. Gem of arrangement and glaring example of how free the form is. The words, “not a novel,” are on the front cover. And once your mind adjusts to Tex’s approach you realize it might be one of the most novel novels you’ve ever read. Broods with anger inherent in Death Metal of the American Midwest. All the trappings of a cult classic without being annoying about it. Stoked to read more of Gresham’s shit.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews