The Good Old Boys: A Hewey Calloway Novel (Hewey Calloway, 2)

I hope some day they show this to the kids in school. This is the way it really was. I lived there from 1953-1958, and even after so many years away, and despite the fact that the setting is removed by 50 years, the country and the kinds of people were virtually unchanged. The eccentricities, the differences betwen (there were lots of immigrants there, even then) but most of all, the character of the people makes this, for me a classic - because it is so true to its subject. Nowadays, many of theste little towns are disappeaering (Upton, in the book). When they're gone, a big part of history will go with them. See the movie. Read the book. Then, if you dare, go there an look around.

anyone who likes westerns, will love this one. Smiling country, a continuation of the story is a great follow up.

It's rare to see a Western novel with character development of this depth. Kelton found the formula earlier in "The Time It Never Rained" and "The Time The Cowboys Quit" and improved on it even more for this novel. I've always been fascinated about the arrival of the automobile in the early West. Everyone didn't one morning wake up and say, "Let's go buy a car". So the transition yields rich opportunities for story development. Like J. Frank Dobie, Kelton grew up on a ranch and heard many of the old-timers sharing tales of a life long since gone. In this book they're woven into a believable tapestry of hard life in an unforgiving landscape. Kelton does a wonderful job of putting Hewey Calloway in both the past and the present...and what's so believable is that this character sees both as well as the challenges of the future. He just hates to see it come. As the years go on these books will continue to rise to the top as evidence that Westerns are more than shoot-em ups. They are documentaries on a way of life that set standards, which this Country will seldom see again. Kelton says this book nearly wrote itself. Thankfully, he was there to show it the way.

The Good Old Boys takes the reader into the world of the early century cowboys that lived and worked on their horses. The men who were top in their field only to see their field melting away. I totally enjoyed every page, and when I saw the snobbish review of an elitist reviewer who said "Aficionados of the oat-burner genre will likely find it a notch above the general fare. More literary tastes will find it wanting. It is not nearly as elevated a book either thematically or stylistically as the afterword by Don Graham would suggest." I simply thought that poor person just doesn't understand! This work by Elmer Kelton depicts a time, a place, and a voice that many may not understand, and will not appreciate. I think that poor soul should not be reviewing "oat-burning genre" but those who live near the land will either remember or learn about another time. Seldom do you find such an original and wonderful story as "The Good Old Boys".

Elmer Kelton is in top form with "The Good Old Boys," a book I'll always remember for its remarkable characters and unusual story. Hewey Calloway struggles with the arrival of automobiles and technology... not unlike the struggle some of us have today with computers and a changed world.