Elmer Kelton (1926–2009)

There's certainly something to be said for learning to appreciate an older style of writing. I labored with Dostoyevsky for example; I even had to work at loving Chekhov. But such adjusting periods usually pay off because the literature is so rich and beautiful and, for the writer, informative about the possibilities in craft.

I've labored long and hard with Elmer Kelton's The Time It Never Rained, because it is an historical novel rooted firmly in a particular culture, a particular era, a show more particular economy. It addresses issues of race and class, of politics, of environmentalism. It is a complex novel. But my problem with it is this: it takes too damned long to get itself underway, and the labor doesn't really pay off. Sure, the characters that start out as stolidly stereotypical do eventually develop distinct personalities, individual motives, a life outside the plot. But before Kelton can let these characters live and breathe on their own, he feels the need to utilize them toward some other Purpose, with a capital P: namely, he needs to take the time to explain to us, in textbook detail, the harsh mechanics of ranch life, the prejudices of every class of character, and -- most importantly -- his conservative, anti-government political slant. And he takes forever doing it.

I suppose that, given the beauty of the second half of the book, that wait might seem worth it. But here's my problem: While Elmer Kelton takes somewhere between 120 and 150 pages to set up the socio-economic realities of his novel, Jane Austen managed the same in the very first sentence of Pride and Prejudice. And I think if Kelton had sacrificed his research and his memoirs in favor of tightly crafted storytelling the way Austen did, this would have been a much, much finer novel.

That's not to say it is without beauty. Even early in the novel, Kelton's descriptions of the landscape are among the most beautiful passages I've read: "It was a comforting sight, this country. It was an ageless land where the past was still a living thing and old voices still whispered, where the freshness of the pioneer time had not yet all faded, where a few of the old dreams were not yet dark with tarnish. It had not been so long, really, since feathered Comanches had roamed these hills a-horseback, seeking after game, or occasionally in warpaint seeking honor and booty and blood. Eighty years . . . one man's lifetime." (One feels the lamenting echo of this romance in the latter pages of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men, both set and written a generation after Kelton's novel.)

And once he gets the dry technical-manual-like explanations of ranch life out of the way, he winds up writing gloriously punchy, concise sentences about cowboying and sheepherding: "Diego climbed over the fence, rope in his hand, and dropped down inside the corral. He shook out a horse loop, moved carefully toward the colts, swung the rope in a quick figure eight and caught the bay around the neck." This quick, easy passage, letting necessary jargon slip in and out without any passing glance, is a far cry better than the full paragraph some 70 pages earlier in which Kelton carries on about the long historical whys and wherefores of putting a plate and glass in the kitchen sink. (I'm not exaggerating.)

Overall, though, the beautiful pastoral writing and the eventual development of the main characters -- especially Charlie Flagg and his Mexican ranch hand's son Manuel -- can't compete with the pervasive political bias of the novel, which asserts itself in long, awkward treatises and monologues or forced "arguments" between the dogged Flagg and basically everyone else in the book. I don't mind political content in a novel, especially if it serves the story, but in the case of this book, the servitude is reversed. In an afterward to the edition I read, Tarleton State University professor Tom Pilkington remarks that "it would be a mistake, I think, to read into the novel a particular political message -- that all government aid should be sternly and righteously rejected." But that precise message comprises at least half of Charlie Flagg's speech and thoughts in this book, and as Pilkington notes, Charlie Flagg is presented as a "a genuine hero," so his is the voice of the whole novel. And every single character save one who accepts government assistance and offers a counterpoint to Flagg's perspective does so in weak, circular, repetitive illogic, always resorting to either an "everyone else is doing it" or a greedy "get yours while the getting's good" position, and every one of them, by the end of the novel, comes to ruination and in one way or another "concedes" that Flagg was right all along. The lone hold-out, the only character to offer the thinnest attempt at a serious argument against the novel's pervasive anti-government stance, doesn't make his stand until barely 10 pages form the end, and the best he can muster is "the system's broken, but the idea's still good."

So I think it would be foolish to ignore the political message wedged into practically every page of this novel, and because the story and the characters become so servile to that message, it's hard to take this book seriously as a work of fiction.

I should say, though, that the problems with story aside, it's clear that Kelton is a damn fine writer; and in the end, despite Flagg's "heroic" efforts to resist government aid, the novel ends on a note as bleak and unforgiving as any I've seen, which is just the way I like my endings. So I would welcome a chance to read one of his less personal, less politically motived historical Westerns. show less

As pedestrian a group of stories as ever rode in, they must have been written for pre-teen Texan boys. Not a single African American, nor a single adult with a mother, only a couple of stories had more than a single woman, and only in one did they converse. Lots of lost tempers and slugging, shot shoulders, shot ranch hands, and firm jawed men.

I first read Elmer Kelton’s Stand Proud sometime back in the eighties, and that was plenty long enough ago for this re-read to feel like I was reading it for the very first time. I remembered almost no details concerning the book’s plot, and had only a general memory of how much I enjoyed the story the first time around. It turns out that Stand Proud explores a theme that Larry McMurtry and quite a few other writers of westerns have explored in their own fiction over the years: what show more happens to violent men who outlive their usefulness to society once times have changed for the better.
Frank Claymore is one of those men.

During the Civil War, Frank had been one of the young militia men who stayed home to protect Texas settlers from the deadly raids of the Comanche Indians who were still not willing to cede Texas to the newcomers. The situation was so desperate that the Confederacy had to stop conscripting men from that part of the state so that the small farms and ranches could survive the war years. Twenty-two-year-old Frank was one of those small ranchers himself, but all able-bodied men were required to put time in with the militia - and he put in more than most.

Frank came out of the war years with three things: a wound that would plague him the rest of his life, the location of a remote grassland valley that he would claim for himself, and a mortal enemy and competitor for everything he held dearest.

And now, over 40 years later, Frank sits in a courtroom to be judged by a jury composed of small ranch owners who resent him and all he has claimed for himself. He is accused of murder, but is still determined to play by his own rules, damn the consequences. And it’s not looking good for him.

Each chapter of Stand Proud opens on a day of Frank’s trial, followed by a longer section from Frank’s past. This allows the reader to compare the young Frank Claymore to the elderly version, and to learn the truth, in detail, about what is being testified to in the courtroom. This construction works remarkably well to explain what kind of man Frank is and why someone as respected as he once was could find himself in a mess like this one so near the end of his life.

Stand Proud is nothing like the stereotypical pulp fiction western readers unfamiliar with the genre too often think of when they think “western” novel. This is a character-driven story in which relationships and longtime grudges drive all the action, a story where disagreements are more likely to be settled by fists rather than by guns. Kelton’s later novels, such as The Time It Never Rained, The Day the Cowboy’s Quit, and The Good Old Boys brought ever more realism to his stories about the cowboying life and its relationship to an ever-changing Texas landscape. The Western Writers of America once went so far as to proclaim Kelton “the greatest Western writer of all time.” I might not go quite that far in my praise of the man, but I will tell you that his fiction has entertained me for a long, long time. And that I appreciate him. show less

THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED is classic Kelton. It's set in 1950s drouth-ridden west Texas, so it's a bit more 'modern' than most westerns. There are elements of THE GRAPES OF WRATH in the way the approximately seven-year drouth (Kelton's choice of spelling; I always spelled it 'drought,' but then I never experienced one like this and Kelton did, so I defer) affects the ranchers and farmers, in much the same way the 1930s Dust Bowl did. Yes, families are displaced, forced to pack up and move show more elsewhere. Spirits and hearts are broken. And yes, Charlie Flagg is a man you'll remember - stubborn, principled and uncomplaining, but a man with a heart, who feels compassion for the underdog - the Mexican-Americans, in this case. Even having grown up with the regional biases, he is beginning to sense that he's been wrong, and that things are changing. There is a kind of understated environmentalism throughout the story too, about stewardship of the land. One of Charlie's lines especially hits home: "There'll come a time in this country when a barrel of water is worth more than a barrel of oil." It's certainly apt in the context of the drouth, but it is proving to be prophetic. Think climate change and despoiling the land.

Kelton knows how to create characters more human, more genuine than you will find in most westerns. Hell, in most fiction, not just westerns! There are only shades of gray in most of his people; a little good and a little bad in everyone. His west Texas vernacular and dialogue seem right too - the hard-bitten stoicism, the wry humor.

At first I thought, this book is kinda long and slow in getting started. Because it takes nearly half of its 400 pages to really begin to roll down hill and pick up momentum. But then I realized that the first half was necessary, to show the kind of man Charlie Flagg was. And the final chapters of the book came close to breaking my heart. No spoilers here, but I predict if you stick with this book, your eyes will be stinging by its end. Elmer Kelton was one hell of a good writer. I'm sure this will not be the last Kelton book I read. He's become a kind of non-guilty pleasure. And hey, if you like Kelton's fiction as much as I do, I also highly recommend his memoir, SANDHILLS BOY. Read that and you'll admire Kelton even more. A good man, a great writer. Texas should be proud. show less