\u00a0 (Flatiron Books, Feb. 6, 2018), which came out last month to high acclaim. As Mealer observes in the book\u2019s early pages, \u201cOnly in Texas was there enough space for so many second acts.\u201d We caught up with him via email to discuss Texas\u2019s resurrection stories, and his own family\u2019s part in some of them.<\/span><\/p>\nLONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: <\/span>Bryan, you were born in Odessa, Texas, and grew up in there \u2014 plus Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Alvin, Big Spring, and San Antonio, Texas. Despite moving around a bit with your family, tell us why Big Spring, Texas, is the locale that defines your family’s history?<\/span><\/p>\nBRYAN MEALER: <\/span>Big Spring was where my grandparents lived, where my father and his siblings were born, and where many of my relatives still lived. It was where we\u2019d finally put down roots after years wandering before the Depression. Big Spring was where my family had been the closest, where we\u2019d had our very best years together.<\/p>\nThe Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family’s Search for the American Dream<\/span> is your fourth book. Up until now, your topics and interests have taken you from Austin to Brooklyn, from Kenya to Congo to Florida. What inspired you to write this book?<\/p>\nI\u2019d always wanted to tell the story of how my dad and his friend, Grady Cunningham, had started an oil company together in the early \u201980s and lived the honky-tonk dream: taking chartered jets to Dallas to buy Rolexes and gold-nugget rings, to the Bahamas for impromptu vacations with a huge entourage. The Rolls Royces and Cadillacs and thousand-dollar dinners. And unfortunately, the whiskey and cocaine (that was more Grady than Dad). For several years my parents lived like rappers, and I remember those years very well. But when I sold that book to Flatiron, my editor didn\u2019t think Grady could hold the entire book on his shoulders, so he encouraged me to dig into my family\u2019s history, and I ended up going back a hundred years.<\/p>\n
For our readers not familiar with The Kings of Big Spring,<\/span> how would you describe it in your own words?<\/p>\nIt\u2019s Grapes of Wrath <\/span>meets \u201cBoogie Nights.\u201d<\/p>\nIn the book, you tell about fortunes being made and lost as well as the personal foibles within your family. Now that the book has come out, do you have sit at the kids\u2019 table at Thanksgiving? Or did you work through that with family members as you were writing the book?<\/p>\n
My family was very forthcoming about our shortcomings and failures, and there were many, so many that my family had a name for it, \u201cthe Mealer luck.\u201d But when I came back and presented these dark memories \u2014 losing a farm to drought in 1916, the bitter days of the Dust Bowl, the time we went bankrupt in the 1950s, etc. \u2014 in the context of history, something changed. For the next generations, they could see that their parents and grandparents weren\u2019t the only ones suffering, that it was more than just hard luck. They could finally see their lives as part of the great American story.<\/p>\n
Your book has some fascinating local history \u2014 including the history of Cosden Petroleum, Raymond Tollett, Dora Roberts, and the Hotel Settles. I especially enjoyed reading about Raymond Tollett and Cosden Petroleum. He seemed to be like the Steve Jobs of his time for that industry. How long did it take you to research and write the book, and what was the most fascinating part of Big Spring’s own history to you?<\/p>\n
I spent a solid two years doing the research before I ever started to write. And even after I started writing I would pause for weeks at a time to research something that suddenly emerged in the storytelling \u2014 such as the Joshua Cosden story. I thought I could tell that story much later in the book, when Grady was introduced, since Grady was basically the symbolic heir to that legacy. But once I realized how fascinating Josh Cosden\u2019s story actually was, and how important it was to the success of Big Spring (along with Tollett\u2019s story), I went back and inserted that narrative into the earlier chapters. It wound up contrasting nicely with the story of my great-grandfather, John Lewis. Here was Cosden, the kind of Jazz-age millionaire and instant tycoon who inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s <\/span>The Great Gatsby,<\/span> who\u2019d made these enormous fortunes by sheer cunning and tact, up against my family\u2019s seemingly endless toil and poverty. It was the story of America, both then and now.<\/p>\nFor people not familiar with Big Spring, in the center of downtown is the Hotel Settles \u2014 a grand vision of a farmer who became wealthy overnight when oil was discovered on his land in the 1920s. Unfortunately, when the hotel opened in 1930, it was too late; the Depression was already on and the farmer lost everything, including the Settles, which eventually fell into ruin and disrepair in the heart of the city \u2014 for decades. Then, the last week of 2012, the Settles reopened, refurbished and brought back to life at a cost of $30 million\u2013plus by Big Spring native turned Dallas tax consultant G. Brint Ryan. My understanding was that you were there for the hotel\u2019s grand reopening on Dec. 28, 2012. What was that moment like?<\/p>\n
That was a special night for me, just because I\u2019d heard so many stories about the hotel while growing up. No one ever thought we\u2019d actually get to see it open again, much less restored, so when those lights flashed on, we all rejoiced. I recommend staying a night there \u2014 it won\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\n
Which figures do you consider to be the \u201ckings of Big Spring,\u201d and why?<\/p>\n
The title was kind of tongue-in-cheek. The real \u201ckings of Big Spring\u201d were undoubtedly Joshua Cosden and Raymond Tollett. But Grady and my father, along with countless other poor boys who\u2019d chased fortunes during that oil boom, always fancied themselves in that esteemed category of immortal men.<\/p>\n
All of your books to date are nonfiction. Have you ever considered writing fiction?<\/p>\n
I have. In fact, I\u2019ve had a novel plotted on my cork board in my office for months. I just have to take that bold first step and start writing.<\/p>\n
What’s your next project?<\/p>\n
My work has always focused on issues of poverty, so I\u2019m trying to maintain that lens. Right now I\u2019m focusing on doing journalism and essays and trying to contribute something substantive and worthwhile to this insane and relentless news cycle. There\u2019s never been a better time for good journalism, and lassoing hold of this storm makes me very excited.<\/p>\n
Last question. If someone wanted to visit Big Spring, and sort of retrace the footsteps of \u201cthe kings,\u201d what three places should be on their itinerary?<\/p>\n
Many of the landmarks in my book have been covered by sand and mesquite. But a few are still there: The Hotel Settles, the Wagon Wheel restaurant (a great little car hop), and Big Spring State Park, where you can walk up Scenic Mountain and see the land stretch all the way to New Mexico.<\/p>\n
* * * * *<\/p>\n
\n
Praise for Bryan Mealer\u2019s THE KINGS OF BIG SPRING<\/h1>\n
\u201cThe Kings of Big Spring<\/span> tears like a flaming roller-coaster through four generations of a Texas family that’s lived it all, from hardscrabble farms and tarpaper shacks to the crazy-making highs of oil booms and big money, with gobs of love, lust, heartache, and Jesus along the way. Bryan Mealer has given us a brilliant, and brilliantly entertaining, portrayal of family, and a bursting-at-the-seams chunk of America in the bargain.\u201d \u2015 Ben Fountain, New York Time<\/span>s bestselling author of Billy Lynn\u2019s Long Halftime Walk<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cMealer has pulled off something downright remarkable here. On one level, he has penned a sweeping multigenerational family chronicle that can be read as a history of Texas and, by natural extension, of the American experience. But it’s more than even that. In the small twists of fate and nature that buffet the extended Lewis-Mealer clan are reminders of the profound capriciousness of life, of how something as simple as a rain that doesn’t come \u2014 or a weevil that does \u2014 can alter a family’s fortunes forever. Masterful and deeply thought-provoking.\u201d \u2015Scott Anderson, author of the New York Times <\/span>bestselling Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cThe Kings of Big Spring <\/span>is the kind of epic tale we rarely see, the sprawling, multi-generation story of a single, hardscrabble working-class family, scrapping and clawing its way through dust storms, droughts and oilfields in its quest for a sliver of the American Dream. At a time when the national spotlight is rediscovering the plight of Middle American families, this book will never be more relevant. Think of it as a Texas version of Hillbilly Elegy<\/span>.\u201d \u2015Bryan Burrough, New York Times<\/span> bestselling author of The Big Rich<\/span> and Barbarians at the Gate<\/span><\/p>\n* * * * *<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Each week Lone Star Literary profiles a newsmaker in Texas books and letters, including authors, booksellers, publishers. Kay Ellington has…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/span><\/span>Kay Ellington has worked in management for a variety of media companies, including Gannett, Cox Communications, Knight-Ridder, and the New York Times Regional Group, from Texas to New York to California to the Southeast and back again to Texas. She is the coauthor, with Barbara Brannon, of the Texas novels The Paragraph Ranch<\/span>A Wedding at the Paragraph Ranch.<\/span><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/sites\/lonestarliterary.etypegoogle10.com\/files\/description\/mealer%2c%20bryan%2c%20lone%20star%20listens_montage%20sm.jpg\")
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