On February 6, 1919, Democratic legislator José Tomás Canales wrote to the Department of Justice that if they were “interested in catching…a crook of the first order and also a man disloyal to our country,” they should send one of their “best men” to watch his investigation at the Texas statehouse. One week later, Canales rested his case against the Texas Rangers, the state force that employed the crook. In the end, the legislator reduced William Hanson and his boss, James Harley, to minor, almost absent figures of his examination.
In These Bones Can Speak, I trace the roots of Canales’s political opportunity and his failure to oust the leaders who gave cover to a reign of terror along the border, much less to reform the unit largely responsible for this carnage. Drawing on records created during Canales’s investigation, as well as those from Texas governors, federal agencies, land and agricultural firms, and the Texas Rangers themselves, I tell a story of land and labor, radicalism and reform along the border, whose tensions and contradictions were embodied in J.T. Canales: the scion of a New Spanish ranching family.
Pre-order These Bones Can Speak on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, Greenlight Bookstore, or your favorite local shop.
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About Me
Most days, I’m with my head bent toward my desk. Right now, I’m getting ready for the release of my second nonfiction book which tells the story of a campaign of state-sponsored violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, a legislator who tried to reform the law enforcement agency responsible, and the political paths, realized and repressed, that brought these figures together. These Bones Can Speak will be published in January of 2027.
I’m also the author of Sprinting Through No Man’s Land, a book about France in the aftermath of the First World War, told via the 1919 Tour de France bike race. Some of my shorter essays, reporting, and criticism have appeared in outlets like The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, and The Paris Review Daily. I’ve covered everything from the language and literature of war to how we publish works after an author’s death and the last days of an orbiting satellite (lots of old, sad things, maybe).
When I’m not writing, I’m most passionate about editing and teaching. I’ve taught workshops, seminars, and lectures at Columbia University and the City University of New York, at literary programs like Catapult, and at community centers like the Manhattan Veterans Affairs Hospital. I’ve also edited award-winning art books, memoirs, literary fiction, personal essays, etc. Feel free to get in touch if you’d like to talk about developmental editing, manuscript/proposal consultations, or teaching opportunities.
I’m a struggling Tweeter and newsletter writer, if you’re looking for other ways of following me. I’m represented in all bookish matters by Becky Sweren and in film/tv by Allison Warren at Aevitas Creative.