St. Petersburg Times, review of Dave Hickey’s Prior Convictions: Stories from the Sixties - Research, July 16, 1989

This series is arranged alphabetically by publication and surveys Lewis’s entire writing career from his earliest poetry and short fiction publications in Avesta (1955)—the student literary magazine of North Texas State College—to his last published piece, a profile of well-known photographer Birney Imes, published in the Los Angeles Times Magazine (1994). Material from a posthumous collection of Lewis’s writing, Splendor in the Short Grass(2005), is also included.

The bulk of the newspaper work contained here (from the Dallas Times Herald, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Houston Chronicle, Houston Post, and St. Petersburg Times)is book reviews of contemporary work of the mid to late 1960’s. These pieces are often highly opinionated and reflect Lewis’s idiosyncratic literary and philosophical sensibilities.

There are many notable inclusions in this series:

• The Coexistence Review, an underground literary publication published with friends and fellow North Texas State College students Larry McMurtry and George Lewis (no relation).

• L.A. Weekly, dated 1993, with Lewis’s cover story feature of the death of his close friend Gus Hasford, author of The Short-Timers—the novel on which Stanley Kubrick’s film Full Metal Jacket was based.

• The aforementioned Los Angeles Times Magazine article dated 1994, which includes audio tapes and a complete transcription of Lewis’s interview with Birney Imes.

• The Movieline material, which consists of Lewis’s book reviews, and also the audio-taped interview and complete transcription of his interview with Hollywood legend, Aldo Ray, for a January 1991 feature story.

• The New West material, which includes extensive correspondence and research, interesting artifacts, and audio-taped interviews for two important articles: “The Shooting of Larry Flynt: an Eyewitness Account by Grover Lewis” (March 27, 1978), and “Buried Alive in Hype: My Years Among the Reality Vultures” (May 22, 1978). • Lewis’s Rolling Stone material, which includes all of Lewis’s major articles, and specifically, the September 2, 1971, issue featuring the article, “Splendor In the Short Grass.” The related material for this issue of Rolling Stone includes letters and a telegram from Bogdanovich; pay stubs; and several heavily corrected typescripts, including a preliminary film-reportage attempt written seven years before “Splendor,” while on the set of Hud near Amarillo.

• Thirty-seven typescript articles published in The Village Voice during 1969. These articles cover topics from the San Francisco area such as the Rolling Stones concert in Altamont, Native American takeover at Alcatraz, and the People’s Park protest in Berkeley.