PositiveThe Texas ObserverIn Daugherty’s hyper-detailed profile, Brammer always led the Austin subculture’s transformation, from the liberals yakking under the oaks at Scholz’s to the crossroads of psychedelia to the City of the Cosmic Cowboy, a brand that still informs how the city sees (and sells) itself today. Bittersweet is a nice word for it. Tragedy is perhaps closer to the truth ... The story rolls along with some Brammerian lyricism, lending the book an intermittent sense of painterly detail. Brammer, who mangles words into perfectly imperfect, phonetic vernacular, is a good subject in this regard, and Daugherty is a worthy storyteller ... For fans of Texas writers, there’s plenty to choose from ... Despite a few hiccups in pacing, including a detailed and mostly required meditation on the Kennedy assassination, Daughtery has done yeoman’s work in compiling interviews with Brammer’s family and friends, whose strong voices lend credence and color to a deeply loving profile ... The themes of modernity, of fractured politics and fights both within and between ideological groups, certainly feel relevant. What’s more, this portrait of the artist as a dying man, forever plagued by sugar-rotted teeth and indecision, speaks to the paralyzing fears that often accompany periods of sudden change. Most of all, Brammer’s is the tale of a changing nation.
