published<\/a> Phillips\u2019 memoir, \u201cNo Fixed Abode,\u201d in 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\nWilliams noted that, local interest aside, \u201cThe Inheritors\u201d received rave reviews when it was released.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Book trade publication Kirkus called it \u201ca full-blooded job, written in a virile, vital prose style\u201d and compared it to the work of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway.<\/p>\n
Author George Sessions Perry anthologized it alongside John Steinbeck\u2019s \u201cThe Grapes of Wrath.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was how the national press saw the book, Williams said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In Texas, reviewers \u2014 if they mentioned it at all \u2014 panned it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Phillips\u2019 hometown paper, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, called it the work of \u201ca somewhat immature and confused young man.\u201d<\/p>\n
The reasons for this reaction are many, said Williams, but the main one is that the book, set in 1935 among the idle, entitled sons and daughters of the country club set, laid bare their moral hypocrisy for all the world to see.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fort Worth author E.R. Bills gave a presentation on the book and its controversy during a 2024 event sponsored by TCU. He wrote the introduction to the new edition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The novel was ahead of its time in 1940, Bills said. \u201cIt pulls no punches,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first chapter begins with the main character, based on Phillips himself, waking with a hangover, followed by sophomoric episodes of masculine debauchery, Bills said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\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 he said.<\/p>\n
The book has some harsh descriptions of the wealthy, Bills said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He recounted how Phillips, through main character George 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
While copies of the book were sold in Fort Worth following publication, they were not often on display.<\/p>\n
Allegedly, for an additional amount, the book would come with a \u201ckey,\u201d listing the real people the characters in the book were based on, Bills said, though he has never seen a copy with that list attached.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bills said it was little surprise the characters cut so close to the truth, as Phillips\u2019 family were solid members of the city\u2019s elite.<\/p>\n
The author\u2019s father, Edwin Phillips Sr., was a successful attorney who died at 37, when his son 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.<\/p>\n
The combination of the reaction to the book and the paper rationing during the war meant that the book effectively ceased to exist, said Williams.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat and the fact there was no follow up,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, its fame persisted.\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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Even Phillips\u2019 son didn\u2019t have a copy until after his father died in 1991.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew about it, but I didn\u2019t have a copy,\u201d said Liam Phillips, who runs a production company in Los Angeles. He wrote the foreword for the new edition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe novel was barely mentioned during the 21 years I lived with my father and mother,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The outrage that followed its publication was just a piece of \u201cfamily folklore,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After the uproar, Phillips stopped writing literary fiction and found success writing scripts for films and popular fiction.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He authored a couple of notable films including 1952\u2019s \u201cBig Jim McLain,\u201d 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
That man with the peripatetic lifestyle was more the father Liam Phillips knew. He believes his father was deeply hurt by the reaction to \u201cThe Inheritors.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was only 25 when it came out, so he wrote this great book when he was likely 23 or 24,\u201d he said. \u201cI find that amazing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Along with the reaction to the book, there was another heartbreak in his life. His first marriage failed and his former wife struggled with an incurable disease.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThose events, along with the early death of his father, impacted him, I believe,\u201d Liam Phillips said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He\u2019s proud that his father\u2019s first novel will see the light of day again. Parts of the novel still get to him when he reads it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I learned when I was helping get his memoir published, my father had a life long before I knew him,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But all that led to a book that is still relevant, Liam Phillips believes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can think of no other modern novel so utterly forgotten and abandoned that in retrospect is now considered a legitimate American classic,\u201d he writes in the foreword to the new edition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t believe it\u2019s mentioned in the same breath as \u2018The Grapes of Wrath\u2019 by accident. It has some real grit to it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The return of the book would bring a smile to his father\u2019s face, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAll those people that were outraged, even members of his own family, would be sad to see that the book has continued to rise like a phoenix,\u201d he said. \u201cMy father would love that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Email him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org.\u00a0<\/p>\n
News decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\nThis <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/2026\/07\/02\/infamous-novel-and-scathing-critique-of-fort-worth-hedonistic-elite-rises-like-a-phoenix\/”>article<\/a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/fortworthreport.org”>Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<img src=”https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”><\/p>\n
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![\"\"](\"https:\/\/fortworthreport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/9780875659169.jpg\")
“No Fixed Abode,” the autobiography of Fort Worth author James Atlee Phillips, was published by TCU Press in 2025. (Courtesy photo | TCU Press) <\/p>\n