Gracing the cover of the University of Texas Press's spring catalog is a trio of striking black-and-white photographic portraits—of one young actor over the course of a dozen years of his life. Boyhood: Twelve Years on Film showcases Austin director Richard Linklater’s monumental film undertaking, Boyhood, which is up for several categories in the 87th Annual Academy Awards Sunday, Feb. 22.
The movie, which was shot in various Texas locations, tracks the maturation of Mason (Ellar Coltrane) in the aftermath of the divorce of his parents, played by Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette.
In the elegantly produced volume, photographs by Matt Lankes and commentary by Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, Ellar Coltrane, and others create a behind-the-scenes portrait of a critically acclaimed cinematic landmark. >>more
Pleasantville by Attica Locke, coming April 15 (Harper, hardcover, 978-0-06-225940-0, $26.99), tells the story of how on election eve 1996, a young black woman volunteering for a mayoral candidate goes missing from Pleasantville, a hamlet for upwardly mobile blacks on the north side of Houston. When an arrest is made in the case, attorney Jay Porter must navigate a maze of dark money and family secrets in his effort to achieve justice.
Locke’s first novel, Black Water Rising, was nominated for a 2010 Edgar Award, an NAACP Image Award, as well as a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was short-listed for the prestigious Orange Prize in the UK (now the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction).
Her second book, The Cutting Season, published by Dennis Lehane Books, is a national bestseller and a winner of the Ernest Gaines Award for Literary Excellence.
A graduate of Northwestern University, Locke was a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Feature Filmmakers Lab. She’s written scripts for Paramount, Warner Bros, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, and HBO, and is a writer and co-producer of the Fox television drama Empire, created by Lee Daniels. Locke lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.
