prairie point

I think this is the first time I have written a book review here. In fact it may be the first time I have written a book review since I got out of high school. But I have noticed several of my blogger friends reviewing books lately so I decided to try my hand at it too.

The Time It Never Rained is not a new book. It was published over thirty years ago and written well before then by Elmer Kelton, a San Angelo newspaperman who wrote a good many novels, mostly 19th century cowboy sagas. This is widely celebrated as his best book. Some West Texans hold it out as “their story.” It has been on my list to read for years and I finally got around to it last week.

Some people see this as the tale of the great Texas drought of the nineteen-fifties. Others see it as a character study of the West Texas rancher or a conflict between the rancher and the government programs of the times. It’s all of those things in a way but for me it is more significantly the story of how the country was transformed from one of small towns and family farms and ranches to a country of urban centers and big businesses. My family was a part of that story too. I was raised in the city but my grandparents had their own land where they grew cotton and cattle. When I was young I still had aunts and uncles who were trying to make a living off the land. All my life I have watched as the little towns boarded up their store fronts while the big cities just kept sprawling. This is not just a Texas story. My wife is from Kansas and her family history is a lot the same.

At first I was afraid this book would turn into an Ayn Rand type political diatribe. The main character is something of a “rugged individualist” who refuses to go along with government support programs and stands against all his friends and neighbors. But I decided to just consider his rants on government subsidies and self-sufficiency as part of his character. I expect there were more than a few men of the times just like that (and some still). Anyway in the end he is ground under the same wheels as everyone else.

At least half of the characters are “Mexicans,” both legal and illegal. Racial conflict and changing attitudes about race are another major theme throughout the book.

This is hardly a fast-moving spellbinder of a book. The story unwinds at the pace of daily life. The author is good at capturing a sense of place and at characterizations, especially the lesser characters. My personal favorite is that of the small-town banker but most all of them seem true to life. The real strength of the book though is the way it shows man’s fate as determined by forces beyond his control.