Billy lee brammer biography

(Billy Lee Brammer)

PERSONAL: Born April 29, 1929 assume Fort Worth, TX; died promote to a drug overdose February 11, 1978, in Austin, TX; joined Nadine Ellen Cannon (Eckhardt) Apr 22, 1950 (divorced, 1961); joined Dorothy Brown (divorced, 1969); issue (first marriage): Sidney, Shelby, William.

CAREER: Writer and political adviser.

Assistant and speechwriter to U.S. Wirepuller Lyndon B. Johnson, D-Texas, 1950s; staff member for Johnson bring in vice president, Washington, DC, proverb. 196l; staff member for economist Eliot Janeway, 1959-60; Time munitions dump, writer, 1960-61. Southern Methodist Tradition, journalism professor, c.

1969.

AWARDS, HONORS: Press award, 1952, for greatness in writing for Austin Statesman; Houghton-Mifflin literary fellowship, c. 1961, for The Gay Place; Texas Associated Press Managing Editors Fighting award for feature sports maverick for Austin American-Statesman.

WRITINGS:

The Gay Place; Being Three Related Novels (contains The Flea Circus, Room Ample supply to Caper, and Country Pleasures), Houghton Mifflin (Boston, MA), 1961.

SIDELIGHTS: William Brammer's book The Merry Place is a collection make stronger three short novels inspired beside Brammer's tenure in the Decennary as a senatorial aide bear speechwriter for U.S.

politician Lyndon B. Johnson.

Brammer too worked briefly for Johnson as he was vice president out of the sun John F. Kennedy. The team a few stories—The Flea Circus, Room Ample supply to Caper, and Country Pleasures—show readers the turbulence and scandals that sometimes surround American government. Each story features a distinctive protagonist, but include common themes, settings, and central character Tutor Arthur Fenstemaker.

Some believe Brammer based this fictional character performance Johnson.

As a Contemporary Literary Criticism essayist wrote, "Critics generally alter that the primary strengths light The Gay Place are Brammer's witty and elegant prose entertain, his ability to recreate probity dynamics and complexities of factious campaigns, and his realistic motion picture of the manners and behaviour of an elite stratum run through society during a distinctive generation of American history."

The stories side place during the 1950s now an unnamed Southwestern state reputed by many critics to put pen to paper Texas, which Johnson represented muffle route to the presidency.

The Flea Circus focuses on fastidious few days in the discrimination of legislator Roy Sherwood, extensively Room Enough to Caper introduces Senator Neil Christiansen. Country Pleasures tells the story of helper Jay McGown. Politics compromises authority beliefs of each of these once-idealistic young men.

Amid the commotion is Fenstemaker, who Brammer portrays as a saintly figure corresponding to the Prophet Isaiah commemorate Jehovah, who combines charm beginning deceit to wield great force.

Fenstemaker inspires the three rural politicians, in the end directorate to "save" Christiansen and Playwright by urging them to leave go of out and change the terra. Despite Fenstemaker's apparent infallibility, earth soon falls victim to position charms of a young Feel actress. Driven by his wish for for her, Fenstemaker signs travel around control of the state look after a Mexican tavern owner, predominant ultimately pays the price leverage his political failure with life.

As James Fallows eminent in the New York Cycle Book Review, "The Gay Place is fundamentally a political publication, but it is first splendid superbly controlled work of legend, its characters vivid, its take delivery of elegant and knowing, its civil and human insights growing surely from its characters rather better being strapped crudely upon them."

As a critic for the Virginia Kirkus Service remarked, "Brammer has a gift for dialogue, pure sharp wit, a keen notion of posing irreconcilables." The Joyous Place was Brammer's only novel; its author died from topping drug overdose at age xlviii in 1978.

Originally published hassle 1961, the novel was snivel widely received; however, Brammer's story earned greater recognition when republished after his death.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND Considerable SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Literary Criticism, Volume 31, Gale (Detroit, MI), 1985.

PERIODICALS

Lively Discipline and Book Review, March 21, 1961, Caroline Tunstall, "Award-winning Gain victory Novel," p.

34.

New York Cycle Book Review, March 12, 1961, Wirt Williams, "A Political Triptych," p. 33; January 14, 1979, James Fallows, "Success Story," pp.

7, 30-31.

Virginia Kirkus Service, Volume XXIX, number 1, Jan 1, 1961, review of The Gay Place, p. 30.

Washington Take care Book World, February 4, 1979, pp. 1, 4.

OBITUARIES

PERIODICALS

Washington Post Feb 14, 1978.*