Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer [Hardcover]

Elmer Kelton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 15, 2007

"One thing is certain," a reviewer in True West Magazine recently said, "as long as there are writers as skillful as Elmer Kelton, Western literature will never die."

Few would disagree with the assessment of the man whose peers voted the "Best Western writer of all time" and whose 50 novels form a testament and tribute to the American West. 

 

But who is that Texas gentleman with the white Stetson and rimless eyeglasses whose friendly face appears on so many book jackets?

 

Sandhills Boy is Kelton's memoir, a funny and poignant story of  "a freckle-faced country boy, green as a gourd, a sheep ready to be sheared," growing up in the wild, dry, sandhills of West Texas. The son of a working cowboy and ranch foreman, Elmer was expected to follow in father's footsteps but learned at an early age that he had no talents in the cowboy's trade. Buck Kelton called Elmer "Pop," said he was "slow as the seven-year itch," and reluctantly supported his son's decision to become a student at the University of Texas, and, eventually, a journalist and writer.

 

Kelton's life in ranch and oil patch Texas during the Great Depression is told with warm nostalgic humor animated with stories of the cowboys and their wives and kids who gave the time and place its special flavor. He writes with great feeling of his service in WW2 in France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia, and the romantic circumstances in which his life changed in the village of Ebensee, Austria.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Writing with a perpetual wink, the most beloved western writer alive recounts his own story of growing up in Depression-era west Texas, the son of a hardworking cowboy who could "squeeze a nickel until the Indian rode the buffalo." It was evident early that young Elmer made a poor cowboy, prompting an inferiority complex noticeable even in this memoir. What results is a book more about the people who surrounded the nearly egoless Kelton--many of whom would eventually be transformed into characters in his fiction--from the ranches of Texas to a relatively peaceful stint in WWII Europe, where he met his Austrian bride, to his work as an agricultural journalist. He spends no more than a handful of pages glossing over his celebrated writing career, noting merely that he was grateful to have had a chance to hone his craft before the pulps died out and that he never did really know if his father approved. Although not terribly revealing, this rambling, anecdotal memoir will still be of interest to fans of traditional western fiction. Ian Chipman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"Kelton, like fine wine, just keeps getting better and better." --Tulsa World

"...Elmer Kelton, a wily old cloudburst, imbues his Westerns with ancient myths and modern motifs that transcend cowboys and cattle trails." --Dallas Morning News

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books; 1st edition (May 15, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765315211
• ISBN-13: 978-0765315212
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,064,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elmer Kelton of San Angelo, Texas is a native Texan and author of over 50 Western novels. He has won many awards for his work and has been recognized as the Greatest Western Writer of all time by the Western Writers of America, Inc. He is the author of Forge's Texas Ranger series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Kelton, May 27, 2007

By 

R. D. Harden (Kerrville, Texas) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer (Hardcover)

This book is Elmer Kelton at his best. He talks about his childhood days in various locations in West Texas, about the oilfield days that followed and parralled the "Cowboying" days, and about his joining the army and being stationed in various areas of Europe, with the primary empahsis on Austria, where he met his one true love.

I have read everything that Mr. Kelton has written, and every time another book comes out, I buy it. He truly is the very best when it comes to showing the face and grit of those early West Texans.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Young writer from Texas . . ., August 14, 2007

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer (Hardcover)

Fortunately, though he grew up on a ranch in West Texas, Elmer Kelton by his own admission did not make a good cowboy. Instead, he became one of the best writers of historical western fiction, and this is his personal story. Born in 1926, the oldest of four boys, his father the foreman of a large ranch near Midland, Texas, Kelton devotes much of this autobiography to his early years and what it was like for his family during the Depression. Somewhat shy and bookish, he chose a career in journalism, interrupted while he was at the University of Texas by a year in the Army at the end of WWII. Stationed in Austria, he met his wife Anni, and he tells of their courtship, her immigration to the U.S., and their life together in West Texas.

Readers hoping for more of a story about his struggles, emergence, and recognition as a writer may be disappointed that he has so little to say about that. My favorite of his novels, "The Day the Cowboys Quit," gets only a brief mention. I would love to have learned more about the historical research and the creative choices that went into the writing of that book. I have also wondered how his more popular fiction, such as the Texas Rangers trilogy, manages to be both action-packed and historically accurate - unlike writers like Louis L'Amour, who focus mainly on the action.

All in all, Kelton fans will enjoy this book. It is a congenial read, self-effacing in many ways, and even a little apologetic, as if he regrets that he was never a "good cowboy." The chapters are illustrated with about two dozen photographs, mostly from the 1930s and 1940s. He gives the last word to his wife, Anni, who contributes the final chapter.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elmer Kelton's works, March 3, 2011

By 

Leon Cooper (ALBUQUERQUE, NM, US) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sandhills Boy: The Winding Trail of a Texas Writer (Mass Market Paperback)

Elmer Kelton's "Sandhills Boy" is one of the best non-fiction books I've read. Kelton takes the reader on a trip through real life events of a bashful young boy growing up in Texas, to the war in Europe where he found the love of his life, and back home to grinding out his profession as a writer. A very creative writer who, unfortunately, recently departed. The reader won't want to put this book down until finishing the last page.