Hometown Texas

Brown and Holley are interested in place and what makes people who they are. With particular interest in how people take the hand they’ve been dealt--fate, family, circumstance, luck--and craft a life for themselves, the authors celebrate the grit and gumption of these Texas originals. Introducing quirky characters and tenacious spirits, Holley’s stories seek out the personality of the small town while Brown’s photographs capture the essence of a changing landscape. Hometown Texas aims not to be nostalgic or sentimental but rather to show readers an unknown Texas--one that, while not vanishing, is certainly on the wane.

Organized into five topographical, geographic, and cultural sections--East, West, North, South, and Central--three dozen stories and more than eighty complementary images work to create a parallel narrative to reveal what Brown has described as the ＂collective, various, remarkably complex soul that makes Texas unique.＂

Hometown Texas is an exploration across miles and cultures, of well-traveled roads and forgotten byways, deep into the heart of Texas.

Joe Holley is on the Houston Chronicle staff, where he serves on the editorial board and writes a weekly column. He is the author of Hometown Texas, Hurricane Season: The Unforgettable Story of the 2017 Houston Astros and the Resilience of a City, Sutherland Springs: God, Guns, and Hope in a Texas Town, and Slingin’ Sam: The Life and Times of the Greatest Quarterback Ever to Play the Game, and Native Texan: Stories from Deep in the Heart. He was a 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist for a series of editorials about gun control and Texas gun culture, and a 2022 Pulitzer Prize winner, as part of the Houston Chronicle team. He lives in Austin.