[Gent] obviously knows what he's talking about in [Texas Celebrity Turkey Trot, a] first-person portrait of Texas football hero Mabry Jenkins, a 30-year-old defensive back with bad knees and a hankering to stay in the limelight. It's all machismo and pathos, with Jenkins and his teammates fighting battered joints and onrushing middle age to keep their places on the team. When the worst happens and Jenkins is cut from the squad, he tags along with childhood friends—rodeo luminary Luther Watt and his wife, Nadine …—holding fast to his slipping celebrity through a series of Pro-Am junkets, golf tournaments, and fish frys…. "You ain't going to get to do it over again," Luther says to Mabry…. But Luther is proved wrong, as this raunchy novel progresses—rough, tough, sometimes crude, and always ringing true. Gent has captured the nature of a football team and its members, complete with...