Gary Cartwright is one of Texas s legendary writers In a career spanning nearly six decades he has been a newspaper reporter Senior Editor of Texas Monthly and author of several acclaimed books including Blood Will Tell Confessions of a Washed up Sportswriter and Dirty Dealing Cartwright was a finalist for a National Magazine Award for reporting excellence and he has won several awards from the Texas Institute of Letters including its most prestigious the Lon Tinkle Award for lifetime achievement His personal life has been as colorful and occasionally outrageous as any story he reported and in this vivid often hilarious and sometimes deeply moving memoir Cartwright tells the story of his writing career tangled like a runaway vine with great friendships love affairs four marriages four or five great dogs looking always to explain at least to himself how the pattern probably makes a kind of perverted sense Cartwright s career began at the Fort Worth Star Telegram and Fort Worth Press among kindred spirits and fellow pranksters Edwin Bud Shrake and Dan Jenkins He describes how the three rookie writers followed their mentor Blackie Sherrod to the Dallas Times Herald and the Dallas Morning News becoming the best staff of sportswriters anywhere ever and creating a new kind of sportswriting that swept the country and became standard Cartwright recalls his twenty five years at Texas Monthly where he covered everything from true crime to notable Texans to Texas s cultural oddities Along the way he tells lively stories about rebelling against sobriety in many forms with friends and co conspirators that included Willie Nelson Ann Richards Dennis Hopper Willie Morris Don Meredith Jack Ruby and countless others A remarkable portrait of the writing life and Austin s counterculture The Best I Recall may skirt the line between fact and fiction but it always tells the truth