Founder and leader of the Texas Jewboys, an iconoclastic country and western band of the 1970s, Richard "Kinky" Friedman has since become better known as a comic novelist.

Born in Chicago (not—as often claimed—in Palestine, Texas) on Halloween, Friedman was the son of a psychology professor and a speech therapist. The family moved to Texas during his childhood, buying a ranch near Medina to create the Echo Hill Ranch summer camp for boys. Interested in both music and chess from an early age, Friedman was chosen when he was seven years old to be one of fifty local chess players to challenge Polish-born U.S. grand master Samuel Reshevsky to simultaneous matches in Houston. While Reshevsky won all fifty matches, Friedman was by far the youngest competitor.

Friedman was a junior counselor at Echo Hill Ranch and then an honors psychology student...