Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins (2019)

I'd heard of Molly Ivins before but it wasn't until earlier this year that I read a book of her old newspaper columns from the early 1990's. I liked her pretty instantly, she had great literary voice, very droll, she was liberal who was also thoroughly Texan, once not unheard of (think Lyndon Johnson) but a couple of decades after LBJ's passing increasingly rare, though it seems that type may be on the upswing again. The oldest daughter of a conservative oil executive "Molly" had at an early age rechristened herself from Mary and went on to became the dreaded liberal journalist. Yet she was still very Texan, something that set her apart form the liberal media establishment of the North East, The New York Times hired her for her distinct voice and then proceeded to iron some of her more memorable phrasing from her articles, for example "like a two dollar fiddle" was re-rendered in one piece as "like an inexpensive musical instrument". So she went back to Texas and became the chief chronicler of its legislator and early liberal eye on the rising of George W. Bush, who she said she liked personally, but felt was bad for the country. The kind of person I would have liked to have known personally, and a category screwing presence we could use more of today. Ivins succumbed to cancer in 2007 at the age of 62. ***