Mack Thomas: The Total Beat

Mack Thomas was close friends with many of the Beat Generation’s most famous writers including William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, and Gregory Corso. During the 1960s Thomas spent six years of a possible 20 for drug possession in a Texas prison before his literary and political connections helped secure his release. Thomas wrote two notable novels, Gumbo, a heartwarming account about a young boy growing up during the Great Depression and The Total Beast, a gritty, dark look at being in a Texas jail. He earned his keep writing jazz and popular culture columns, modeled for Neiman Marcus, played jazz saxophone with Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk from New York to Paris, pitched professional baseball, taught ball room dancing, inventor, entrepreneur, and ladies’ man. Eventually Mack was living in a small New Mexico mountain town trying to remain private and away from the limelight. What follows is author Jim Welton’s memoir of tracking down Mack Thomas and what Welton learned about Thomas and life.