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Comanche Midnight
The worlds Harrigan describes in these essays may be vanishing, but his writing invests them with an enduring reality. He ranges over topics from the past glories and modern-day travails of America's most legendary Indian tribe to the poisoning of Austin's beloved Treaty Oak, from the return-to-the-past realism of the movie set of Lonesome Dove to the intimate, off-season languor of Monte Carlo.
If the personal essay can be described as journalism about that which is timeless, then Stephen Harrigan is a reporter of people, events, and places that will be as newsworthy years from now as they are today. Read Comanche Midnight and see if you don't agree.
If the personal essay can be described as journalism about that which is timeless, then Stephen Harrigan is a reporter of people, events, and places that will be as newsworthy years from now as they are today. Read Comanche Midnight and see if you don't agree.
- GenresHistory
227 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1995
About the author
Stephen Harrigan
28 books203 followersStephen Harrigan was born in Oklahoma City in 1948 and has lived in Texas since the age of five, growing up in Abilene and Corpus Christi.
He is a longtime writer for Texas Monthly, and his articles and essays have appeared in a wide range of other publications as well, including The Atlantic, Outside, The New York Times Magazine, Conde Nast Traveler, Audubon, Travel Holiday, Life, American History, National Geographic and Slate. His film column for Texas Monthly was a finalist for the 2015 National Magazine Awards.
Harrigan is the author of nine books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Gates of the Alamo, which became a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book, and received a number of awards, including the TCU Texas Book Award, the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West.Remember Ben Clayton was published by Knopf in 2011 and praised by Booklist as a "stunning work of art" and by The Wall Street Journal as a "a poignantly human monument to our history." Remember Ben Clayton also won a Spur Award, as well as the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize, given by the Society of American Historians for the best work of historical fiction. In the Spring of 2013, the University of Texas Press published a career-spanning volume of his essays, The Eye of the Mammoth, which reviewers called “masterful” (from a starred review in Publishers Weekly), “enchanting and irresistible” (the Dallas Morning News) and written with “acuity and matchless prose.”(Booklist). His latest novel is A Friend of Mr. Lincoln.
Among the many movies Harrigan has written for television are HBO’s award-winning The Last of His Tribe, starring Jon Voight and Graham Greene, and King of Texas, a western retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear for TNT, which starred Patrick Stewart, Marcia Gay Harden, and Roy Scheider. His most recent television production was The Colt, an adaptation of a short story by the Nobel-prize winning author Mikhail Sholokhov, which aired on The Hallmark Channel. For his screenplay of The Colt, Harrigan was nominated for a Writers Guild Award and the Humanitas Prize. Young Caesar, a feature adaptation of Conn Iggulden’s Emperor novels, which he co-wrote with William Broyles, Jr., is currently in development with Exclusive Media.
A 1971 graduate of the University of Texas, Harrigan lives in Austin, where he is a faculty fellow at UT’s James A. Michener Center for Writers and a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly. He is also a founding member of CAST (Capital Area Statues, Inc.) an organization in Austin that commissions monumental works of art as gifts to the city. He is the recipient of the Texas Book Festival’s Texas Writers Award, the Lon Tinkle Award for lifetime achievement from the Texas Institute of Letters, and was recently inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. Stephen Harrigan and his wife Sue Ellen have three daughters and four grandchildren.
Harrigan is the author of nine books of fiction and non-fiction, including The Gates of the Alamo, which became a New York Times bestseller and Notable Book, and received a number of awards, including the TCU Texas Book Award, the Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, and the Spur Award for Best Novel of the West.Remember Ben Clayton was published by Knopf in 2011 and praised by Booklist as a "stunning work of art" and by The Wall Street Journal as a "a poignantly human monument to our history." Remember Ben Clayton also won a Spur Award, as well as the Jesse H. Jones Award from the Texas Institute of Letters and the James Fenimore Cooper Prize, given by the Society of American Historians for the best work of historical fiction. In the Spring of 2013, the University of Texas Press published a career-spanning volume of his essays, The Eye of the Mammoth, which reviewers called “masterful” (from a starred review in Publishers Weekly), “enchanting and irresistible” (the Dallas Morning News) and written with “acuity and matchless prose.”(Booklist). His latest novel is A Friend of Mr. Lincoln.
Among the many movies Harrigan has written for television are HBO’s award-winning The Last of His Tribe, starring Jon Voight and Graham Greene, and King of Texas, a western retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear for TNT, which starred Patrick Stewart, Marcia Gay Harden, and Roy Scheider. His most recent television production was The Colt, an adaptation of a short story by the Nobel-prize winning author Mikhail Sholokhov, which aired on The Hallmark Channel. For his screenplay of The Colt, Harrigan was nominated for a Writers Guild Award and the Humanitas Prize. Young Caesar, a feature adaptation of Conn Iggulden’s Emperor novels, which he co-wrote with William Broyles, Jr., is currently in development with Exclusive Media.
A 1971 graduate of the University of Texas, Harrigan lives in Austin, where he is a faculty fellow at UT’s James A. Michener Center for Writers and a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly. He is also a founding member of CAST (Capital Area Statues, Inc.) an organization in Austin that commissions monumental works of art as gifts to the city. He is the recipient of the Texas Book Festival’s Texas Writers Award, the Lon Tinkle Award for lifetime achievement from the Texas Institute of Letters, and was recently inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. Stephen Harrigan and his wife Sue Ellen have three daughters and four grandchildren.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 1, 2026
Sometimes I like to read a good book of essays and this one by Stephen Hartigan certainly fit the bill. Hartigan was a writer for "Texas Monthly" magazine so, of course, the focus of the book is on Texas. But, interestingly, not all the essays are about the Lone Star State, as he wrote essays for magazines other than "Texas Monthly." All of the essays are from the late 80s and early 90s.
Topics include the Comanches, Highway One, Galveston Bay, the Battle of San Jacinto, and alligator snapping turtles ( "Swamp Thing"). Hartigan also writes about non-Texan topics, such as the Anasazi, Monaco, Otze the Iceman, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. One interesting essay is about tigers, as he writes about the killing of a zookeeper by a Siberian tiger in the Houston Zoo ( that was in 1988). Another one of great interest to me is about the making of the "Lonesome Dove" TV series in Texas.
My favorite of all the essays--and the one that sticks with me--is "The Soul of Treaty Oak" from the October 1989 issue of "Texas Monthly." The Treaty Oak stood in its own park in Austin and it is said that Stephen Austin signed a treaty with local tribes beneath its branches. It is also said that it was 600 years old and, even if it wasn't quite that old, Hartigan states that it was the oldest living thing in Texas. However, the great oak tree was poisoned. A man poured a deadly herbicide called Velpar around the base of the tree. As Hartigan writes, " As the Treaty Oak stood there, helplessly drawing Velpar through its trunk and limbs, it became an unforgettable emblem of our ruined and innocent earth." Hartigan writes about the efforts to save the great tree and I'm left with the thought--why would anyone do such a thing? And another question would be-why are we so determined to destroy our beautiful Planet Earth, our only home?
Topics include the Comanches, Highway One, Galveston Bay, the Battle of San Jacinto, and alligator snapping turtles ( "Swamp Thing"). Hartigan also writes about non-Texan topics, such as the Anasazi, Monaco, Otze the Iceman, and Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. One interesting essay is about tigers, as he writes about the killing of a zookeeper by a Siberian tiger in the Houston Zoo ( that was in 1988). Another one of great interest to me is about the making of the "Lonesome Dove" TV series in Texas.
My favorite of all the essays--and the one that sticks with me--is "The Soul of Treaty Oak" from the October 1989 issue of "Texas Monthly." The Treaty Oak stood in its own park in Austin and it is said that Stephen Austin signed a treaty with local tribes beneath its branches. It is also said that it was 600 years old and, even if it wasn't quite that old, Hartigan states that it was the oldest living thing in Texas. However, the great oak tree was poisoned. A man poured a deadly herbicide called Velpar around the base of the tree. As Hartigan writes, " As the Treaty Oak stood there, helplessly drawing Velpar through its trunk and limbs, it became an unforgettable emblem of our ruined and innocent earth." Hartigan writes about the efforts to save the great tree and I'm left with the thought--why would anyone do such a thing? And another question would be-why are we so determined to destroy our beautiful Planet Earth, our only home?
October 20, 2016
This is a fine collection of essays. Well worth the read. Especially if you're looking for stories from Texas.
October 4, 2017
Enjoyed many of these. Cover a range of topics related to and located in Texas.
November 22, 2019
Stephen writes interestingly about the physical world and humanity mostly from Texas affecting on today’s lives.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews