The Smiling Country [Hardcover]

Elmer Kelton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1998

It is 1910 and cowboy-hero Hewey Calloway, of Kelton's "The Good Old Boys" is facing a great crisis: forces he can't control are interrupting his freewheeling life!.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Hewey Calloway, an aging cowhand in 1910 Texas, doesn't like what he sees around him: automobiles are replacing buckboards, trucks are replacing mules, and--worst of all--his boss wants him to stop busting broncs. When nephew Tommy runs away from home and winds up on Hewey's crew at the Circle W, events are set in motion that will alter Hewey's life in ways he never expected. First, he runs into Spring Renfro, the schoolteacher he loved but gave up for the freedom of the range. Second, he runs into trouble with a new foreman at the Circle W and then gets busted up by a mean ol' bronc. His injuries take him back to Tommy's parents' home to recuperate, and suddenly it seems Miss Renfro may be more receptive to courtship than he first thought. Calloway first appeared in Kelton's Good Old Boys (1978), which was made into a fine movie with Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek. Kelton is a genuine craftsman with an ear for dialogue and, more importantly, an understanding of the human heart. Calloway is one of the most memorable characters in recent western fiction, even though he doesn't carry a gun and would probably run away from a bad guy. But his heart is as big as the open range, and it's ever so easy to root for his happiness. An exceptional sequel. Wes Lukowsky

From Kirkus Reviews

Western storyteller Kelton (Cloudy in the West, 1997, etc.) returns for his fortieth-plus novel, a sequel to 1978's The Good Old Boys that again features hang-loose Hewey Calloway, circa 1910, as his lovable old Smiling Country of West Texas fades into the automobile age. We first meet Hewey chasing a longhorn bull on the loose, an animal that symbolizes the breed of overmuscled, hardscrabble beasts soon to be phased out of beef production. In these animals, Hewey glimpses his own fate, as he herds his steers into pens at Alpine, Texas, for shipping by rail to Kansas City. When his boss, Old Man Jenkins, buys the Circle W outfit and asks Hewey to run it for him, Hewey at first passes up the promotion, not wanting to give orders and preferring to work for wages as a top hand. But after feeling some regrets about never having married Miss Spring Renfro and never having quite made his mark on the country, he accepts the Circle W job and its hundred square miles of wonderful smiling pasture. Hewey also takes his very young nephew Tommy under his wing when the boy joins the crew and learns to bust broncs. Hewey believes that he himself is still up to stomping some outlaw, extra-wild, fairly insane broncsbut when he does, he winds up with a broken arm, ribs, knee, and internal injuries. Still, he wont surrender to trucks and automobiles, although eventually he gets around to struggling into and out of a passenger seat. By then even the sheepherders have moved in. The town livery stable may turn into a garage. . . . And just watching a bronc being busted gives Hewey a chill. Well, maybe he'll ask for Spring Renfros hand (again). Old-timey dialogue, newly minted, rhetorical stretchers, and whopping good humor right out of Twain. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 255 pages
• Publisher: Forge; 1st edition (August 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031286471X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312864712
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,754,523 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

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner from EK, January 7, 1999

By 

Spud Gutz "texboy1231" (Maynard, MA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Smiling Country (Hardcover)

Mr. Kelton is from, and writes about, my hometown of San Angelo, Texas. He has a talent for seeing the past in vivid detail (I don't think he's a contemporary of Hewey), an understanding of Native Americans equal to Larry McMurtry's, an eye for modern life in West Texas, and a fine sense of humor (characters like Snort Yarnell). Good work, Elmer; hope to see you in the coffee shop of the Cactus Hotel someday!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Western I have ever read., June 13, 2000

By 

Ronald M. Mazak "Amazing Mazak" (Johnston, IA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Smiling Country (Mass Market Paperback)

Like "The Pumpkin Rollers", this is probably the best western I have ever read. It is also a contender for the best book ever read. Hewey Calloway and Spring Renfro are the greatest. What a powerful ending! Also, the other characters that are great are Peeler, Skip Harness, who dies when he is gored by a bull (very sad), Walter and Eve, Tommy, Cotton, Fat, and the list goes on. This is a wonderful book!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars THE SMILING COUNTRY WILL MAKE YOU SMILE!, August 24, 2001

By 

Mac Blair "Mac Blair" (Huntingdon, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Smiling Country (Mass Market Paperback)

What a great book. It is the story of part of the life of Hewey Calloway. One of the last of the true cowboys. He hates to see cars, trucks and telephone lines. He is, I think, really what most of the cowboys were like. It is not full of gun fights and running from the sheriff. He is a hard working man that moves on when he feels like it. A real good story. Has places that are sad and many places that will make you smile. The ending is very good. I just got a happy feeling from reading the book. Makes me wish I had been Hewey Calloway.