This Stubborn Soil

5572. This Stubborn Soil A Frontier Boyhood, by William A. Owens (read 29 July 2018) This is a most unusual book. The author calls it "fictionalized autobiography". It tells the story of the author's life from the time he was born (on 2 Nov 1905) in a place called Pin Hook, in Lamar County, Texas, till at age 18 he was to start college in Commerce, Texas. The author was the fifth of five boys in his dirt poor family and his father left his mother soon after he was born. His mother married again (briefly) and had a sixth boy. The primitiveness of the life is astonishing and at times funny. The author is eager for education and books but gets very little. I suppose the account is written to make an astounding story, and it succeeds. The show more farm life was centered around cotton, peanuts, and having enough to eat. I don't think I have ever read of a more primitive and poverty-full life but one has to admire the resourcefulness of the family. There is a sequel, called A Sense of Weathering, which I would read if I found a copy. show less

This is, quite simply, a wonderful and plainly told story of a hardscrabble childhood and youth in east Texas and a glimpse of a bygone era. It's too bad we couldn't make it required reading for today's youth. William A. Owens was a credit to his generation. Loved this book, and will read his next memoir, A Season of Weathering, soon.