The unlikely pair published an essay about the forthcoming book earlier this month in the New York Times:
"Endemic poverty is a theme that Guthrie would turn to full-bore in House of Earth. The narrative follows the lives of two hardscrabble farmers, Tike and Ella May Hamlin, living in the cap rock country of West Texas, 'that big high, crooked cliff of limestone, sandrock, marble and flint, that runs between and is the line that divides the lower west Texas plains from the upper north Panhandle plains.' The impoverished couple, it seems, live in biological harmony with the land. A scorching lovemaking scene on a hay bale viscerally represents the fertility ritual. Yet they can’t keep the bizarre weather out of their shabby home, and Tike — Guthrie’s alter ego — starts espousing the gospel of adobe." More.
Brinkley visited the Institute in 1998 to introduce Hunter S. Thompson, and again in 1999 to discuss William Kennedy's career as a journalist as part of a presentation for the Associated Writing Programs (AWP), and to discuss his bestselling 1998 book on Jimmy Carter, The Unfinished Presidency: Jimmy Carter's Journey Beyond the White House.
