SOURCE: "Old Corrals: Texas According to 80s Films and TV and Texas According to Larry McMurtry," in Journal of American Culture, Vol. 13, No. 2, Summer, 1990, pp. 63-73.

In the following essay, Sanderson—in the context of considering modern Texan popular culture—critiques Anything for Billy, commenting on McMurtry's dual role as a writer reacting to and creating Texas myths.

For several years now, in conversations at conventions and at cocktail parties, I have noticed Texans arguing about Texas literature. The same arguments have appeared in print from Texas Monthly to The Texas Observer to The Concho River Review. The more notorious of these articles raised literary dust across the state from the stamping of feet of angered Texas critics and writers. Palefaces, Redskins, and bridegrooms all have different and sometimes conflicting notions about what a Texas writer is and what Texas writing is. The Texas Institute of Letters annually...