What really (might have) happened when Jack Ruby, nightclub owner, brass knuckle-slinger, and inveterate fan of Corbusier, decided to kill the killer of JFK? In this first-ever trade publication of Bob Trammell’s work, Jack Ruby mythos loops between fact, fiction, and spectacle to satirize Dallas’ place on the world stage. Jack Ruby & The Origins of the Avant-Garde in Dallas caricaturizes everyone from Bob Thornton to Joseph Beuys; fodder for JFK conspiracy theorists, innuendo-readers, ingenious speculators, and pursuers of The Truth About Dallas At Large. With an introduction by Ben Fountain and afterword by David Searcy, this volume also includes Trammell’s “Quiet Man” story cycle from over the course of his long, countercultural writing career, lamenting a generation that lost much by embarking on a search for themselves in a city―and world―unwilling to support its brightest artists. "Robert Trammell is an essential American writer, and Jack Ruby & the Origins of the Avant-Garde in Dallas is his essential book. Trammell puts words to an unspeakable event, and brings us as close as we're ever likely to get to understanding an unknowable American tragedy." ― Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk and Beautiful Country Burn Again Robert Trammell, author of numerous books of poetry and stories, was a legendary underground writer in Dallas, and founded the literary nonprofit WordSpace.