Blessed Bud Shrake Died

It's an odd phrase, "Bud Shrake Died."  Seems so out of context.  Life is steaming all around us, Bud should be here.  But, Bud Shrake died, at age 77 in Austin on Friday May 8.  Born in Fort Worth in 1931, beginning as a writer for his high school newspaper and getting educated at TCU, Edwin went from being Fort Worth Press police beat writer to a remarkable career in sports journalism (Texas newpapers and Sports Illustrated), novels (9 of his 10 set in Texas), co-authoring a best-selling book on golf (Harvey Penick's Little Red Book), co-biographer (Willie Nelson and Barry Switzer), magazine essays (e.g., Texas Monthly, Harpers), screenwriter (one being Tom Horn, 1981) and all sorts of other paperwork. I first read Shrake's Strange Peaches while in Library School in the 1970's and subsequently fell under the spell of Blessed McGill.  His early literary companions were often Gary Cartwright, Billy Lee Brammer, Dan Jenkins, and Peter Gent with whom he stirred the pot and drank at the well of Texas literature.  But his influence was broad.  He will be buried in the Texas State Cemetery near Ann Richards. Shrake's partial bibliography includes Blood Reckoning (1962) But Not For Love (1964) Blessed McGill (1968) Strange Peaches (1972) Peter Arbiter (1973) Limo (1976, with Dan Jenkins) Night Never Falls (1987) Willie: An Autobiography (1988) Bootlegger's Boy (1990) (the Switzer biography) Harvey Penick's Little Red Book (1992) The Borderland: A Novel of Texas (2000) Billy Boy (2001) Custer's Brother's Horse (2007)   An anthology, Land of the Permanent Wave, An Edwin "Bud" Shrake Reader, was published in 2008 by UT Press.  Shrake introduces himself there in an introduction - revealingly as usual. His papers are at Texas State University in the Southwestern Writers Collection http://alkek.library.txstate.edu/swwc/archives/writers/shrake.html View a Texas Monthly Talks interview collected in Will's Texana Channel Playlist of "Authors" at http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FEDACCD3C2E25DAA