\u201cThe Inheritors\u201d has been hard to find in the decades following publication and copies, when found<\/a>, sell for well into three figure sums. The book was republished as a paperback in the 1950s with a new cover and title, \u201cThe Naked Year.\u201d But that edition, too, has been hard to find.\u00a0<\/p>\n Fort Worth author E.R. Bills gave a presentation on the book and its controversy during a 2024 presentation sponsored by TCU. The novel was ahead of its time in 1940, Bills said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe first chapter begins with the main character George Bellamy Jimble III, the protagonist of the book, who was based on Phillips himself, waking with a hangover and sophomoric episodes of masculine debauchery promptly ensue,\u201d he said. \u201cFor the next two dozen chapters, they drink, chase girls, pursue a questionable easy money grift for liquor money and express profoundly dim views of country club gaiety and undermine the entire Cowtown dollar aristocracy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The book has some harsh descriptions of the wealthy, Bills said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bills recounted how Phillips, through Jimble, described the members of the country club during a party there: \u201c\u2018Maybe they ought to lock the people up in the bank vault and let the money do the living.\u2019 That\u2019s pretty harsh,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise the characters cut so close to the truth. Phillips grew up around the wealthy and privileged of Fort Worth\u2019s oil and ranch families, living in a home near River Crest Country Club.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips\u2019 father, Edwin Phillips Sr., was a successful attorney who died at 37, when James Phillips was 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n His mother was Mary Louise Phillips, who served on the Fort Worth ISD board of education from 1935 to 1941. She was also head of \u201cindustrial development\u201d for the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce. An elementary school on the city\u2019s west side is named after her.\u00a0<\/p>\n Success elsewhere<\/p>\n Despite the positive reviews for \u201cThe Inheritors,\u201d Phillips never returned to writing much contemporary fiction. Instead, he found success writing scripts for films and popular fiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n He authored a couple of movies including \u201cBig Jim McLain,\u201d a 1952 anti-communist potboiler starring John Wayne, and the 1958 cult classic \u201cThunder Road\u201d starring Robert Mitchum as a fast-driving moonshiner.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Phillips found his biggest success writing a series of mystery and spy novels starring a character named Joe Gall. The novels remain in print.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips wrote many of those books while traveling the world on freighter ships, according to his autobiography. He would apparently book passage on those ships and, packing along his typewriter, write the novels using much of the local color he encountered in his journeys.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d continued to have its admirers over the years, even though copies remained difficult to find.\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas author and critic A.C. Greene included \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d on his list of \u201cThe Fifty Best Texas Books,\u201d initially published by Texas Monthly in 1981. Other admirers of Phillips\u2019 work included hard-boiled novelist Raymond Chandler.\u00a0<\/p>\n Autobiography leaves out details\u00a0<\/p>\n While the autobiography details a lot about Phillips in its 256 pages, it leaves a lot out. It\u2019s unclear how serious Phillips was in writing about himself. He chronicles his three marriages, but doesn\u2019t spend much time describing the issues that led to two divorces.\u00a0<\/p>\n He does discuss his interesting side career as a promotions man for both Amon G. Carter and Broadway impresario Billy Rose as part of Fort Worth\u2019s Texas Frontier Centennial exposition, the city\u2019s competitor to Dallas\u2019 more formal centennial celebration.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips and his crew traveled the south plastering promotional copy on empty spaces in small towns promising that Fort Worth\u2019s celebration of the state\u2019s anniversary would be more fun than the one to the east. That led to one arrest for defacing a church whose leaders didn\u2019t like their empty wall being used to advertise an event that promised more sin than Sodom and Gomorrah, according to Phillips.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bailed out by Carter, Phillips then landed a job in New York with Rose, working as his publicity man. That was around the time Phillips completed \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d and he was able to connect with publishers in the city.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo Fixed Abode\u201d doesn\u2019t devote more than a couple of pages to the infamous book and its reaction.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf I could manage fame in New York or nationally, I managed instant infamy in my hometown,\u201d Phillips writes.\u00a0<\/p>\n To Phillips\u2019 delight, he claims, sermons were preached against \u201cThe Inheritors.\u201d His book sold out in Fort Worth where, for an additional 50 cents, one could purchase the real names of the characters in the book, according to Phillips.\u00a0<\/p>\n While the book received generally good reviews, the author\u2019s timing was off.\u00a0<\/p>\n With World War II on the horizon and paper rationed, \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d was not reprinted until it came out as a paperback in 1954 under the title, \u201cThe Naked Party.\u201d As a result of that scarcity and also because of the notoriety, copies of the novel can be costly. An online version of the book is available here.<\/a><\/p>\n Fame or infamy?<\/p>\n Phillips is hardly the only member of his family to earn some amount of fame, if not infamy.\u00a0<\/p>\n His brother, David Atlee Phillips, rose to become the CIA\u2019s chief of operations for the Western Hemisphere.\u00a0<\/p>\n David Atlee Phillips was repeatedly connected to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, accused of meeting with Lee Harvey Oswald in the months before the assasination.\u00a0<\/p>\n When a book accused Phillips\u2019 brother of being Oswald\u2019s case officer, he sued the authors for libel and won an undisclosed amount of money. The accusations were retracted.\u00a0<\/p>\n Phillips\u2019 son, Shawn, is a musician who was popular in the \u201960s and \u201970s and worked with a variety of artists including Donovan, Eric Clapton and Steve Winwood.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Phillips\u2019 novel is now more than 80 years old, Bills says it remains topical and relevant.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe things he says in the book still have an impact, and still have some truths to tell,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.\u00a0At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n Fort Worth Report is certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative<\/a> for adhering to standards for ethical journalism.<\/p>\n Republish This Story<\/p>\n
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