Execution, Texas: 1987 - Hardcover

Critical Praise for Execution, Texas: 1987:

"D. Travers Scott's novel is, in turn, both funny and disturbing...captures the mystery and confusion of an American youth where the search for love is equaled only by the search for drugs." --David Sedaris

"Wonderfully evocative, and the characters are the book's great strength...probably the most interesting gay debut novel since Dale Peck's." --Graeme Atkin, Melbourne Star-Observer

"A fine combination of literary work and compelling read...The story and its presentation are at once mystical, sad, tender, and smart. Execution, Texas: 1987 is an exciting debut novel from one of today's most promising young gay writers." --Chicago Outlines

"Killer humor...Scott neatly but affectionately skewers the 1960s generation that raised those freaked-out kids...knife-edge balance between satire and soap opera, its humor and angst remain winning." --The Seattle Times

"Beautiful...[an] elegance of writing that keeps sensory matter the fore, halfway between Flaubert and Straight to Hell...D. Travers Scott brilliantly delineates the most complicated of ages, when adulthood is a possible escape hatch, slightly out of reach, and the world is too big and too small." --Robert Gluck, The Stranger

"Excavates the spiritual life of kids from out of the crumbly, barren soil of the suburban Midwest...The book's pressured, hothouse energy is generated largely by Seeger's fumbling search here on earth for the perfectly observed world of [Marc] Almond's songs, and his inevitable failure to find it...an intriguing meditation on art and life." --Matthew Stadler, The Stranger

"Elegantly constructed and very smart, Execution, Texas: 1987 holds more crackly energy than a box of firecrackers. And Seeger, its nervy, sex-obsessed protagonist, is unforgettable." --Scott Heim

For Seeger King, graduating from high school and entering New York University is only one of the problems he faces. He is experiencing recurring visions of his father and stepmother in a car crash. His girlfriend, Cordelia, with whom he becomes a late-Eighties version of F. Scott and Zelda partying through the Dallas club scene, may not go with him to New York. He is lusting after Kent, who may or may not be gay, and his real New Age mother is sure Seeger's ESP abilities can help her?they do mushrooms and Mexico together. After publishing over 100 pieces in literary magazines, Scott, in his first novel, uses intriguing metaphors and an evocative style to integrate the coming-of-age dilemmas of Seeger with an Eighties freewheeling drugs-and-sex lifestyle. But his characters lack any real conflicts. Seeger accepts his bisexuality, his New Age mom, and his normal parents. Thus, the author provides little insight for readers. An optional purchase.?Joshua Cohen, Mid-Hudson Lib. System, Poughkeepsie, N.Y.
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