Reflections from Mirror City

About the Book

Since D Magazine discovered it in 1986, I have been an admirer of Tom McClellan’s writing. Collected in Reflections from Mirror City, McClellan’s selected, published and unpublished work is a stygian journey—through South Texas, West Texas, Dallas, in and out of madness, but always toward lucidity and spiritual wholeness. From “Introductory Comments” by Lou Dubose, Editor of the Washington Spectator; with Molly Ivins, co-author of the best-selling Shrub: the Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush. I found all the essays thoughtful, moving, intellectually stimulating, and exciting to read. Professor F. E. Abernathy, Editor Emeritus, Texas Folklore Society . . . These pieces are the personal essay at its very best. The Deal of the Art in the right kind of world would be widely anthologized in college texts, and Poetry and Politics, and Populism also. . . . work of the very highest integrity. Dr. Giles Mitchell, Professor Emeritus, University of North Texas.

About the Author

“I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came to me.” I’ve suffered from mental illness since 1974 and been locked away so many times I could write an official tour guide of Dallas mental health facilities: Hillside is definitely a four-star establishment; Parkland’s Eighth Floor, three and a half stars; Dallas County Crisis Care Center – well, the food is tolerable, but the ambience is not. They have you strip naked, so they can inspect you for scars, like USDA inspectors with a side of beef. Take your vacation elsewhere. My fourth and apparently final diagnosis is bipolar disorder – “with psychotic features,” as if that were an added attraction. Late onset. (From: “Address to a Hospital Chaplaincy Workshop,”)