DALLAS 1963

Fifty years on, the assassination of John F. Kennedy continues to fascinate so many of us and authors Bill Minutaglio and Steven L. Davis are no different. Here, in DALLAS 1963, they take us back to the months and years leading up to that fateful day in Dallas and reveal the backdrop of what was happening in the city when Kennedy arrived and the particular social, political and cultural “perfect storm” that greeted him that day.

In the early 1960s, Dallas, Texas, was brewing with political passions, a city full of extreme and unlikely characters, many of them dead-set against a Kennedy Presidency — rabid politicos, a defrocked military general, an oil baron, and a Baptist leader, along with a host of gangsters, unsung civil rights leaders, strippers, billionaires, and marauding police. Beginning with the campaign for Kennedy's election, and set against a nation in transition, Minutaglio and Davis explore why the Kennedy camp never could have anticipated the vitriol awaiting them in Texas. Breathtakingly paced, DALLAS 1963 presents a clear, cinematic, and revelatory look at one of the most significant and terrifying political events of the 20th century and is also a sobering reminder of how radical ideology turns ordinary people extraordinarily violent. Bill Minutaglio is the author of several critically acclaimed non-fiction books, including a biography of President George W. Bush and a narrative retelling of the greatest industrial disaster in American history. Steven L. Davis is the author of two books on Texas culture. He is a long-time curator at the Wittliff Collections at Texas State University-San Marcos, which holds the literary papers of Cormac McCarthy, Sam Shepard, and many other writers.