Surprise, Texas

An historical fiction, or a fictional history -- you decide which -- intended to be read aloud, this is a story about how we sometimes must become what we pretend to be. Set in the ephemeral village of Surprise in the hard-scrabble oil patch of Andrews County, Texas, Thom Ed Jones recounts the history of the place and its peoples, a tribe by choice living by design in obscurity, quartered in homes with wheels. Surprise, Texas is the sort of place you drive past as quickly as you can, though after reading Thom Ed's story you might want to lighten your load of possessions and throw in with all these Surprises.