All three lawyers on the Eroy Brown case indeed made it to the Texas Book Festival on Sunday and spoke to the audience there. Here’s what the Texas Observer blogged. An excerpt of the book is running in the November issue of the Observer.
Three lawyers from the Eroy Brown trial expected to attend Texas Book Festival
If all goes as expected, Bill Habern, Timothy Sloan and Craig Washington will all be together for my presentation at the Texas Book Festival in Austin. Nate Blakeslee, a senior editor at Texas Monthly and the journalist who broke the story on the notriously corrupt Tulia, Texas, drug bust for the Texas Observer, will be moderator. I can’t think of a better journalist in Texas. Nate wrote a book on the case, Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town. This will be a great opportunity for me to talk about the book and to for these lawyers to answer some questions about the case.
The presentation will take place at 11 a.m in Capitol Extension Room E2.014.
Book excerpt to run in November issue of the Texas Observer
It’s only fitting that an excerpt of The Trials of Eroy Brown is going to appear in the November issue of the Texas Observer.
Dave Mann, the new editor, thought it was a perfect match for magazine and so do I. I’m sorry that Molly Ivins isn’t around to see it happen. She wrote in 1994 after Craig Washington was defeated for Congress that Washington’s defense of Eroy Brown would make a great book and movie, and go down as a Gettysburg of legal history. What a great woman she was. The book is dedicated to her memory.
The Observer will blog about the excerpt soon in anticipation of my appearance at the Texas Book Festival in Austin, Sunday, October 23.
Brazos Bookstore and Houston Book Festival appearances: Nov. 5 & 6
I’m giving two readings and signings during the first weekend of November.
At 2 on Saturday, November 5 I’ll be reading at the Houston Book Festival, sponsored by the Museum of Printing History.
The Houston Book Fair has been growing in size and popularity since its debut in 2003. This year’s line-up includes over 20 dealers from across the country. Specialties include antiquarian and rare books, fine bindings, first editions, Texana, history, Civil War, art books, children’s books, mysteries, illustrated books, classics, historical documents & maps, ephemera, prints and photographs, comics, and book art crafts.
Admission is $5.00. Free for Museum Members. For questions about this year’s Book Fair, please email Amanda Stevenson, Curator.
I’ll read and sign books the next day on Sunday, November 6 at 2. Brazos Bookstore is supplying books for both events. If you’re interested in buying a book, you can order directly though Brazos at: http://www.brazosbookstore.com/event/michael-berryhill-trials-eroy-brown
By ordering now you’ll be sure to have a book waiting for you, and Brazos Bookstore manager Jeremy Ellis will know how many to have in stock.
Book on Eroy Brown featured on tonight’s Prison Show
I’ll be talking about the book on the long-running “Prison Show” on KPFT, Friday evening at 8:45 to 9:30.
Texas Book Festival appearance, Sunday October 23
The Texas Book Festival has invited me to speak about The Trials of Eroy Brown.
I will appear Sunday, October 23 at Room E 2.014 in the Capitol Extension.
The book festival is one of the great events in Austin, with 250 writers appearing, including several national figures such as Susan Orlean and Stacey Schiff.
I’m looking forward to meeting Jeff Guinn, author of a terrific book on Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker that was helpful for the Eroy Brown book. Barrow has been so glamorized by the movies that we tend to forget his hatred of Texas prisons. He went into the Eastham prison as a car thief, but after he was raped by a building tender and beaten by prison officials, he came out a cold-blooded killer, bent on stealing enough guns and money to break his friends out.
Like Lawrence Brewer, the ex-convict who was executed last week for killing a black man in Jasper, Texas, Clyde Barrow was a product of the Texas prison system.
Texas Monthly touts Trials of Eroy Brown
On page 64 of the October Texas Monthly, the book editor touts The Trials of Eroy Brown at the bottom of the major review. It’s also mentioned at the bottom of the review in the digital version, here.
Texas Book Festival: Oct. 22-23
I’ll be among the 250 writers at the Texas Book Festival at the State Capitol in Austin, the weekend of October 22-23. No schedule has been announced yet, but once I know where and when I’ll be appearing, I’ll post it.
Library Journal recommendation
Library Journal reviewed The Trials of Eroy Brown on September 1 and recommends the book for “students of the law, proponents of civil rights, Texas historians and lovers of crime sagas.”
The reviewer, a prison librarian in New York, begins: “Readers who have worked in prisons in states other than Texas will consider the case of Eroy Brown bizarre. But this was Texas….”
‘A jarring portrait’: Publishers’ Weekly reviews ‘The Trials of Eroy Brown’
Publishers’ Weekly has reviewed The Trials of Eroy Brown: The Murder Case That Shook the Texas Prison System, the forthcoming book by Michael Berryhill.
An excerpt:
Well documented and unsentimental, Berryhill’s account of this infamous 30- year-old murder case that pitted one man’s innocent plea against Texas’s political might provides a jarring portrait of a once-medieval state prison.
