Don’t Mess With Texas: 9 Books That Take Place in the Lone Star State

Winner of a National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and a PEN/Faulkner Award, Annie Proulx is a literary master who has penned eight incredible books (including CLOSE RANGE, which features the short story you’re probably familiar with—“Brokeback Mountain”) spanning American time and space. Through the young and aimless character Bob Dollar, who moves to the two-bit Texas town Woolybucket, THAT OLD ACE IN THE HOLE explores the beauty of Texas ranchland and the changes the American West has experienced in the last century. With descriptions of full landscapes, love, history, and a few bawdy moments, it’s a completely addictive read through and through.

We’re really excited to see the forthcoming adaptation, starring Tom Hanks, of this National Book Award for fiction finalist, which takes place in the aftermath of the Civil War. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, traveling through north Texas, agrees to take an orphan girl 400 miles to relatives in San Antonio. But their journey leads to bonding, and their arrival leaves him with a difficult decision. With appropriate excitement and intensity for a novel set in nineteenth-century Texas, it’s also full of heart and easy-to-love characters.

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This exceptional book is really a collection of short stories about the people living and working at the American army base in Fort Hood. From women whose husbands are away at war to teenagers who disappear and officers facing struggles at home, author Siobhan Fallon gives a realistic and emotional look at the lives of soldiers and their families.

Adventure tale, love story, and frontier epic, LONESOME DOVE is the Pulitzer Prize–winning classic about the Texas town Lonesome Dove in the nineteenth century. With a cast of characters including cowboys, settlers, Native Americans, outlaws, brothel workers, and beautiful ladies, it’s a deeply atmospheric and exciting tale, and possibly one of the best stories about the wild American west.

This romantic historical novel takes place during the Depression and follows two main characters, David Rainwater and Ella Baron. Ella is a mother and runs a boardinghouse. David is a dying stranger who becomes a lodger in her home. While she is initially very suspicious of him, a romance begins to kindle. Ella’s whole life is about to change, and not just because of David—there’s an economic crisis threatening to tear up the town. It’s a heartwarming story about circumstances and the choices we make.

We could not put together a list of books set in Texas without Cormac McCarthy, who has written a number of books set in the American South and West. ALL THE PRETTY HORSES is the first in the Border Trilogy and the recipient of a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. McCarthy takes a distinctly different tone from his other writing in this novel and weaves a hauntingly beautiful, detailed, and comic coming-of-age story about a young man’s journey into the unknown world of the border between Texas and Mexico in the 1940s. If you are new to Cormac McCarthy, this is a good place to start, but you can also dive into a number of his other works set in Texas, like BLOOD MERIDIAN, which is a classic piece of literature in the American canon.

Randy Kennedy’s debut novel is set in the 1970s Texas Panhandle and follows a car thief and his brother who accidentally kidnap a Mennonite girl named Martha. However, Martha does not want to be returned home, where she would live with her vindictive father. So all three set out for the Mexican border, and their journey takes them through the arid landscape of western Texas. With some humor, suspense, and characters that feel extremely real, this story delivers everything you’d want from a Southwestern noir novel about people often on the outskirts of society.

When a deadly flu pandemic hits the US, and Polly’s partner, Frank, becomes sick, she has to travel to the future as a bonded laborer to get her company to pay for Frank’s treatment. They agree to meet in Galveston 12 years from the original time, but Polly is accidentally sent forward an additional five years, and she has to find out if Frank, and their love, is still alive. This mysterious and imaginative story is an exploration into the endurance and complexities of human relationships and does so with beautiful language.

Margaret Jacobsen has just gotten her dream job in Austin when she boards a flight with her fiancé, Chip, and it crashes, resulting in a spinal cord injury that could render her incapable of walking ever again. When Chip walks away from her, and her job offer is rescinded, Margaret can turn only to her family—which is full of characters—and a seemingly misanthropic physical therapist. Tragic, yet funny, this story takes a witty, honest look at survival and finding solace in unexpected places in the face of unexpected challenges.