The guy sitting next to me at the table where several of us semi-famous authors were sitting and waiting to autograph our books said he was from Abilene, the one in Texas. He was a clean-cut, fairly handsome young man whose book had a colorful jacket and title, "Chocolate Lizards."
He said his name was Cole Thompson. I saw on the jacket of his book that he was a Stanford University graduate and his book was published by St. Martin, a New York outfit. So, I picked up a copy and read the blurbs on the back.Larry McMurtry called it a "very entertaining example of West Texas oil field Gothic."
Waylon Jennings said Thompson had "captured" the scenery and ambiance of West Texas oil fields, "even the insanity."
Darrell Royal said "if you want a fast and funny crash course in pickup trucks, cowboy boots and the search for oil, read 'Chocolate Lizards."'
I usually don't pay a lot of attention to book jacket blurbs, but these three intrigued me: so, I bought the book and asked my neighbor to sign it. Which he did, then he bought a copy of my book, "Confessions of a Maddog," and I signed it for him.
I didn't read my new friend's book for a couple of weeks after returning home with it. I was in the middle of "The Return of Little Big Man" and other matters. When I did get around to it, I found it was a fast, entertaining story, well told, that would, in my opinion, make a dandy movie, starring that young fellow, Matt Damon and Paul Newman or some other older star, maybe John what's-his-name who played Roseanne's husband in that TV sitcom.
You say Paul Newman and John What's-his-name are nothing alike? If you read the book you'll see what I mean. They wouldn't play the part alike, no doubt, but either could pull it off.
See, the story is about this young Harvard graduate who has been in Hollywood trying, very unsuccessfully, to make it as an actor. He finally gives in to his father's pleas and, with money his dad sends him (his dad's a professor at Harvard) heads back to Boston on a bus.
About halfway home, in West Texas to be specific, he loses what cash he had left in a poker game with a con man and gets stranded in Abilene, flat broke.
That's where the story begins. This young, naive Harvard man stranded in Abilene, Texas, with no money and ashamed to contact his father for help.
He winds up, by an interesting turn of events, working for Merle Lusky, a hard-drinking, tough-as-nails, woman-loving wildcatter who is about to lose his oil rigs and ranch to a crooked banker. That's the part Newman or that other guy could play.
The raunchy oil man hires the Harvard man (he calls him "Harvard") to help him concoct a scheme to save his ranch and rigs and the way they do this is the bulk of the book. It is a vivid and action-packed tale. They are aided and abetted by Tex-Ann, a busty, gum snapping topless dancer imported from Dallas.
Author Cole Thompson is a graduate of Stanford, not Harvard, but has a day job in the oil fields of West Texas. This is his first book, but I predict he'll be able to drop his day job soon and earn a living writing full-time.
Unless, like some writers, he only grinds out a book every 35 years.
And, I own an autographed, first edition of his first novel. Someday it may be worth as much as $40, like the first book of someone I know on today's market.