In an “All Ablog Austin” entry late last year, Statesman reporter Sarah Coppola hips us to Austin’s latest unsung author: Brewster McCracken. Of course, word around the office was that McCracken had penned an unpublished tome, but who knew he was finishing his second? And who wouldn’t savor its title: “All My Friends Are Becoming Surfers for Jesus.” Is there anything the man can’t do? Coppola characterizes it as the story of a “college-dropout-surfer who can’t live up to his golden-boy brother and whose surfer pals are suddenly devoting themselves to the Lord,” before noting that toward the end of the as-yet-unfinished novel, our protagonist may “leave his lazy ways behind.” Of concerns that future opponents (Lee Leffingwell?) may try to Jim Webb the council member with the tome’s racier passages, McCracken says “If you hold back on a story because you’re worried about other things, you shouldn’t be writing in the first place.” Which pretty much sums him up as a whole.
This article appears in December 29 • 2006.