Elmer Kelton: Essays and Memories

by Judy Alter (Editor), James Ward Lee (Editor)

When Elmer Kelton died in the fall of 2009, the literary world lost a consummate writer, a man the New York Times called a “novelist who brought the sensibility of the old-style western to bear on a modern Texas landscape of oil fields and financially troubled ranches.” Kelton was also a modest, kind man, always willing to advise a struggling writer or write a blurb for a first time published author, or assign publishing rights to his six masterpieces to a small university press.

TCU Press owes a great debt of gratitude to Kelton, and this volume, Elmer Kelton: Memories and Essays, attempts to explore just what it is that made Kelton its leading author.
Editors Judy Alter and James Ward Lee gathered together a group of Kelton aficionados who had either published or taught or sold his books, or were simply friends. In several meetings, they divided up the main themes of Kelton’s writing: Alter provides the overview of Kelton’s career; Felton Cochran, longtime owner of Cactus Books in San Angelo, describes how the friendship between bookstore owner and author grew over the years; Ricky Burk, pastor of the church from which Kelton was buried, talks about the man’s influence in his community; Kelton’s son, Steve, explains how Kelton’s career as journalist permeated his novels; Ruth McAdams, who has taught Kelton for years, explores how he deals with the themes of endurance and change; Joyce Roach delicately covers how race and ethnicity figure in Kelton’s plots and the development of his unforgettable characters; Lee gives readers his inimitable take on the Hewey Calloway Trilogy—The Good Old Boys, The Smiling Country, and Six Bits a Day; and Bob J. Frye takes a wry look at Kelton’s use of humor throughout his career. The book also contains Kelton’s own view of the history of the Western novel, a response to revisionist criticism. And finally Cochran provides us a list of most, not all, of Elmer Kelton’s extraordinary body of work. 

144 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

After an established career writing historical fiction for adults and young adults about women of the nineteenth-century American West, Texas author Judy Alter turned her attention to contemporary cozy mysteries and wrote three series: Kelly O’Connell Mysteries, Blue Plate Café Mysteries, and Oak Grove Mysteries. She has most recently published two titles in her Irene in Chicago Culinary Mysteries--Saving Irene and Irene in Danger.
Her most recent historical books are The Most Land, the Best Cattle: The Waggoners of Texas and The Second Battle of the Alamo, a study in both Texas and women’s history. Judy’s western fiction has been recognized with awards from the Western Writers of America, the Texas Institute of Letters, and the National Cowboy Museum and Hall of Fame. She has been honored with the Owen Wister Award for Lifetime Achievement by WWA and inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame at the Fort Worth Public Library. She was named One of 100 Women, Living and Dead, Who Have Left Their Mark on Texas by the Dallas Morning News, and named an Outstanding Woman of Fort Worth in the Arts, 1988, by the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women
Judy is a member Sisters in Crime and Guppies, Women Writing the West, Story Circle Network, a past president of Western Writers of America, and an active member of the Texas Institute of Letters.
Retired after almost thirty years with TCU Press, twenty of them as director, Judy lives in a small cottage—just right for one and a dog—in Fort Worth, Texas with her Bordoodle Sophie. She is the mother of four and the grandmother of seven. Her hobby is cooking, and she’s learning how to cook in a postage-stamp kitchen without a stove. In fact, she wrote a cookbook about it: Gourmet on a Hot Plate.

Reviews

[Timothy Bazzett · Rating 4 out of 5]

ELMER KELTON: ESSAYS AND MEMORIES is a significant addition to the scholarly advancement of literary Texas. Judy Alter and James Ward Lee are obvious enthusiasts and students of Texas books, particularly of the collected works of Elmer Kelton, a sterling example of the western genre for over fifty years, until his death in 2009.

I first 'discovered' Kelton perhaps ten or fifteen years ago when I read THE PUMPKIN ROLLERS. From there I went on to read a couple of the Hewey Calloway books, and then a couple years ago I read Kelton's autobiography, SANDHILLS BOY, a book I especially enjoyed, being a memoir afficianado. My biggest regret is that I read that book less than a month after Kelton died, so I never got a chance to write him and tell him how much I loved his story.

But I was happy to discover this slim tribute volume of ten essays, both personal and scholarly, from scholars, close friends (often both) and even family (Kelton's son Steve), from TCU Press. I particularly enjoyed Steve Kelton's piece about his dad, and how his career as an agricultural journalist complemented his 'avocation' as a fiction writer; and co-editor Judy Alter's essay, "Two Careers in One." I also loved the the voice of Kelton himself in a 1990 speech preserved here, "On the History of the Western Novel." Co-editor Lee's piece on the Hewey Calloway Trilogy also caught my interest, and I suddenly realized that although I'd seen the Tommy Lee Jones TV movie, THE GOOD OLD BOYS, I don't think I've ever read the book. But I have read the prequel and sequel.

I must confess that I have not thoroughly read the most scholarly pieces in the book - those by Frye, Roach and McAdams. I read just enough (skimming) to be aware that they do represent the best kind of painstaking reading and academic research, and place Kelton's books firmly into the arena of serious literature, particularly his later works. The reason I didn't follow through with these particular pieces is that I have not yet read those 'signature' works like THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED and THE DAY THE COWBOYS QUIT and others. And those pieces, fine as they are, are full of 'spoilers' for people like me, who still have 40 or more of Kelton's books left to read. So, my apologies to those fine Kelton scholars, but I've gotta wait until I've read a little more Elmer Kelton. THEN I'll read your pieces more carefully.

Bottom line? This is a fascinating little book. I'm putting it right next to SANDHILLS BOY in my bookcase, and will visit it again from time to time as I continue my own studies of Elmer Kelton.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER