The Good Old Boys by Elmer Kelton; narrated by George Guidall | 2008; originally published 1978 | Recorded Books | Audiobook $ 27.50
Hewey Calloway has a problem. In his West Texas home of 1906, the land of the way of life that he loves are changing too quickly for his taste. Hewey dreams of freedom — he wants only to be a footloose horseback cowboy, endlessly wandering the open range. But the open range of his childhood is slowly disappearing: land is being parceled out, and barbed-wire fences are spring up all over. As if that weren’t enough, cars and other machines are invading Hewey’s simple cowboy life, stinking up the area and threatening to replace horse travel. As Hewey struggles against the relentless stream of “progress”, he comes to realize that the simple life of his childhood is gone, that a man can’t live a life whose time has passed, and that every choice he makes — even those that lead to happiness — requires a sacrifice.
I wanted a wide variety of genre fiction for my list for Classics Club, and that had to include at least one or two Westerns. Though they’re no longer trendy, Westerns were wildly popular up until about the 1980’s-1990’s; no list of classic lit could entirely exclude this genre, in my opinion.
Elmer Kelton was from my hometown; in fact, the local college held his personal library and papers in their archives for at least some time, though it appears that collection may have moved to a different institution now. And while reading The Good Old Boys, I suddenly realized it was in fact a re-read — it had actually been an assigned book for one of my junior high or high school classes. Obviously it wasn’t memorable enough to me at that time to make any big impression, though.
This time around it was more enjoyable. I appreciated each character’s individual development and their interactions with each other. The story of a cowboy confronting the rapid social and technological changes of the turn of the century made me wonder what my own great- and great-great-grandparents of that era thought of it all, too.
I’m glad I re-read it, or more specifically listened to it, simply because it was so good to once again hear the accent and cadence of old timers in West Texas. It’s funny; I still live in the state, after all. But Houston might as well be on another planet. You might not think there’s that much of a difference in speech from one subregion to another, or even from one generation to another, but there absolutely is.
I think this is a pretty good intro book for Westerns, if you want to give the genre a try but don’t necessarily want to devote hours and hours and hours of your life to something as epic as Lonesome Dove.
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Publication information: Kelton, Elmer. The good old boys. Landover, Maryland: Recorded Books, 2008. Audiobook.
Source: Public library, via Hoopla.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.