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This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies. If you follow the news,

you might remember that a few weeks back the Attorney General of Texas was impeached in his

state's legislature for many well-publicized acts of mischief and alleged criminality.

The official can Paxton was acquitted by the 31 members of the Texas Senate,

one of whom was Paxton's wife, though she recused herself from the vote.

Paxton now says he'll file criminal complaints against the lawmakers who led his impeachment.

Texas politics, long known for producing colorful characters and larger than life dramas,

are the subject of a new novel by our guest,

veteran journalist and author Lawrence Wright.

Wright is probably best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, The Looming Tower,

about the rise of Al Qaeda, which was also a Hulu series, and going clear,

his book about Scientology, which became an Emmy-winning documentary bit aired on HBO.

Wright has also written screenplays, musicals, and performed a one-man show about his research

into Al Qaeda. He wrote a nonfiction book about the changing character of his home state titled

God Save Texas. His new novel looks at the Texas legislature through the story of a fictional

rancher who's cast by circumstance into a successful race for the state house where he sees how

things really work in the capital. The result is funny, revealing, and thought-provoking.

Though he's lived for decades in Austin, Lawrence Wright has been a staff writer for The New Yorker

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