cover image Texas Big Rich: Exploits, Eccentricities, and Fabulous Fortunes Won and Lost

Texas Big Rich: Exploits, Eccentricities, and Fabulous Fortunes Won and Lost

Sandy Sheehy. William Morrow & Company, $22.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-0-688-04819-8

To the ``cowboy capitalists'' of the diversified Texan economy who made and sometimes lost fortunes from the 1970s until the 1986 bust, ``big rich'' meant hundreds of millions. In this breezy, occasionally tongue-in-cheek, well-researched group portrait of just such entrepreneurs, freelance writer Sheehy singles out former governor John Connally, the Hunt dynasty of silver barons, and investment magnate and richest Texan H. Ross Perot. Perhaps most typical of the breed, she notes, is Clayton Williams, astute, deceptively folksy rancher-oilman-banker and 1990 Republican Texas gubernatorial candidate. She also depicts the elite's gossip-generating high jinks, fashions, favored sports and entertainment. Photos not seen by PW. Major ad/promo; author tour. (Aug.)