The Chicken Ranch: Take three

My second try at a more informal, revised opening to my book on the infamous La Grange Chicken Ranch went up last week, and although the response was generally positive, there were a few concerns raised. The voice, some felt, might be a little bit too rustic for modern audiences. Fair enough. On further review, it may well stray too far into Life on the Mississippi territory for a book with both feet planted firmly in Texas. So I started thinking about what made the story of the Chicken Ranch unique, and I struck upon all the contrasts and contradictions inherent in the tale. That was all I needed to go to town on this new, revised opening:

It was the best of brothels, it was the worst of brothels, it was the heaven of hedonists, it was the hell of chaste, it was the epoch of innocence, it was the epoch of corruption, it was the season of prostitution, it was the season of morality, it was the spring of mass media, it was the winter of rural isolation, we had whores before us, we had "Closed on Account of Marvin Zindler" before us, we were all going direct to the Chicken Ranch, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the La Grange of the 1970s was so far like the La Grange of the 2010s, that some of its noisiest residents insisted on its history being buried, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

How does the new approach work? There's a sort of rhythmic cadence that sets in there, doesn't it? Remember, it's still a work in progress--all of this can change!

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