Novelist
Elizabeth Crook
Notes from Evan Smith
"As genres go, historical fiction ain't beanbag--it requires of the author all the creativity and elegance and expository momentum of a novelist plus the attention to detail and dogged research and broad world view of an academic. No small task for even the most able among us, but Elizabeth Crook is special. In the last fifteen years, she has produced three sterling works of historical fiction, winning fans and friends among readers and critics alike. Her debut, 1991's The Raven's Bride, the tale of Sam Houston's relationship with his young bride, Eliza Allen, had the distinction of being edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as was Crook's second book, 1994's Promised Lands: A Novel of the Texas Rebellion. This year, The Night Journal, part love story and part mystery set in the Southwest, also received mostly positive reviews and solidified the 46-year-old's place as the state's premier practioner of the form. Born in Houston, Crook herself has a place in Texas history, hailing from some of the state's richest stock. The granddaughter of supermarket magnate Howard E. Butt and the daughter of LBJ's late VISTA director William Crook, she grew up variously in San Marcos, Washington, D.C., and Australia and graduated from Rice University with a degree in English. For nearly twenty years she has lived in Austin, where, along with raising two kids, she has been a major contributor in the capital city's literary life." - Evan Smith, Texas Monthly Talks, Broadcast 3.16.06
