What do you think?
Rate this book
Hewey Calloway #1
The Good Old Boys
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.
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.
306 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1978
54 people are currently reading
911 people want to read
About the author
Elmer Kelton
196 books257 followersElmer Kelton (1926-2009) was award-winning author of more than forty novels, including The Time It Never Rained, Other Men’s Horses, Texas Standoff and Hard Trail to Follow. He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron, was published in 1956. Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His novel The Good Old Boys was made into a television film starring Tommy Lee Jones. In addition to his novels, Kelton worked as an agricultural journalist for 42 years. He served in the infantry in World War II. He died in 2009.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/elmerk...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/elmerk...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews
May 4, 2023
The year is 1906 in West Texas. Times are a'changin' all too fast to suit Hewey Calloway. He's an old school cowboy, loves his freedom. More and more of the land is being fenced, and the insidious beginnings of the motor car are making themselves known, stinking up the fresh air and making a whole lot of racket. Hewey does not expect these newfangled contraptions to catch on. He is a man out of his time.
There is a tinge of humor underlying this novel. Hewey takes his baths with his cowboy hat on. These baths are seldom, by the way, and are most often taken out in the water trough that serves the cattle. Screeching peahens, recalcitrant mules, and ill-tempered broncos abound. It is noted that each time an old friend passes away, your life loses a bit of its flavor.
. . . friendship, a commodity beyond price.
There is a tinge of humor underlying this novel. Hewey takes his baths with his cowboy hat on. These baths are seldom, by the way, and are most often taken out in the water trough that serves the cattle. Screeching peahens, recalcitrant mules, and ill-tempered broncos abound. It is noted that each time an old friend passes away, your life loses a bit of its flavor.
. . . friendship, a commodity beyond price.
April 10, 2025
Land. It was a pleasant thing to ride across but a demanding thing to own.
Hewey Calloway is a free-roaming cowboy of a different world. The times are quickly changing in 1906 and the older generation is having to come to grips with it all. For our good old boy, Hewey, freedom from the cares of the world are his goal in life. Money has no meaning to him and he sure can’t stand to see all of the fences that keep popping up - putting an end to the meaning of wide open spaces. The idea of owning land and settling down was just not in his blood. He viewed land ownership as a double-edged sword - the land may belong to you but eventually it owns you. It’s a lot of work for not enough return, in Hewey’s view.
He recognized the fence as a necessity for the small settler’s survival, but it was not a thing he could accept without regret at the passing of a freer and more open time. A fence— any way you look at it— was an obstacle. It shut you out or it shut you in.
Hewey’s brother, Walter, gave up the “good old boy” lifestyle of roaming for the farming livelihood. He chose a wife and a homestead where Hewey remained unrestricted and carefree, able and ready to ride off to anywhere he felt like going without anything or anyone holding him back. But Walter has the bank to answer to with the claims on his land and farm holdings. Without a good return on his crop sales to pay them off, he could be left with nothing. Then, Hewey faces the facts that the world and its technologies are passing him up and leaving his old ways behind. His nephews have always looked up to him. Cotton, values the possibilities of the future and that includes his fascination with automobiles. His brother, Tommy has farming in his blood though. But Hewey’s ability to make up yarns without thinking of the consequences to the boys might just bring him down the pedestal they’ve put him on.
Hewey has a lot to reckon with aside from the fact that his brother and sister in law want him to settle down and make a living like everybody else. He still has feelings like everyone else and a sensitive side that just touches your heart. He gives readers many opportunities to laugh out loud. Kelton’s succinct prose is perfectly matched to provide humorous anecdotes and wry and witty sayings right out of Hewey’s mouth. He doesn’t always hold back. Hewey Calloway is such a breath of fresh air and one character that I won’t soon forget.
The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.
”Lots of people talk about what the Lord wants. Wonder how many has ever asked Him?”
I always like God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church house.
Hewey Calloway is a free-roaming cowboy of a different world. The times are quickly changing in 1906 and the older generation is having to come to grips with it all. For our good old boy, Hewey, freedom from the cares of the world are his goal in life. Money has no meaning to him and he sure can’t stand to see all of the fences that keep popping up - putting an end to the meaning of wide open spaces. The idea of owning land and settling down was just not in his blood. He viewed land ownership as a double-edged sword - the land may belong to you but eventually it owns you. It’s a lot of work for not enough return, in Hewey’s view.
He recognized the fence as a necessity for the small settler’s survival, but it was not a thing he could accept without regret at the passing of a freer and more open time. A fence— any way you look at it— was an obstacle. It shut you out or it shut you in.
Hewey’s brother, Walter, gave up the “good old boy” lifestyle of roaming for the farming livelihood. He chose a wife and a homestead where Hewey remained unrestricted and carefree, able and ready to ride off to anywhere he felt like going without anything or anyone holding him back. But Walter has the bank to answer to with the claims on his land and farm holdings. Without a good return on his crop sales to pay them off, he could be left with nothing. Then, Hewey faces the facts that the world and its technologies are passing him up and leaving his old ways behind. His nephews have always looked up to him. Cotton, values the possibilities of the future and that includes his fascination with automobiles. His brother, Tommy has farming in his blood though. But Hewey’s ability to make up yarns without thinking of the consequences to the boys might just bring him down the pedestal they’ve put him on.
Hewey has a lot to reckon with aside from the fact that his brother and sister in law want him to settle down and make a living like everybody else. He still has feelings like everyone else and a sensitive side that just touches your heart. He gives readers many opportunities to laugh out loud. Kelton’s succinct prose is perfectly matched to provide humorous anecdotes and wry and witty sayings right out of Hewey’s mouth. He doesn’t always hold back. Hewey Calloway is such a breath of fresh air and one character that I won’t soon forget.
The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.
”Lots of people talk about what the Lord wants. Wonder how many has ever asked Him?”
I always like God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church house.
July 17, 2023
My second Elmer Kelton novel. The other was The Time It Never Rained, which I described in my review as a perfect novel for my taste. This one was too!
Kelton was born in 1926 (d.2009) and his father had been foreman of a ranch near Crane, Texas. He wrote this book after his father had suffered a stroke and comments in his Introduction that “The Good Old Boys was written on two levels. On the surface it was intended to be a humorous and good-natured look at West Texas country life of that period…But on another, less obvious level, I wrote in sadness, a lament for a less pressurised time and a simpler way of life that had died, as my father was dying.”
An difficult mix to pull off, you might think, but it works brilliantly. This novel manages to be both humorous and elegiac.
Kelton says that his lead character, Hewey Calloway, is based on several of the cowboys he knew during his boyhood in the 1930s, although the novel is set a generation earlier in 1906. Hewey is an old-style cowboy, riding all over the western US, earning enough to live on by working on ranches, and then moving on.
“Ain’t you ever found anywhere you wanted to stay?”
“Just about every place, at first. Then directly I get to thinkin’ there might be somethin’ better down the road.”
“But it’s never there, is it?”
“It’s always there, for a little while.”
Hewey lives for the moment. He is in his late 30s but his life is a sort of permanent adolescence. This is where most of the book’s humour comes in. People find different things funny, but for me the humour worked superbly. There were a couple of comic scenes in particular, at Chapters 4 and 7, that had me rocking with laughter.
The book’s other main characters are Hewey’s sister-in-law Eve, his brother Walter and their two sons. They are homesteaders, and thus represent the opposite kind of life from Hewey, one of responsibility, financial worries, and unrelenting hard work. On the other hand they have each other as family, their own land, and their own home, all things Hewey does not have. On a visit to see Walter’s family, Hewey meets a woman he falls for, and is faced with a choice. He wants both to live with the woman and to continue his life of wandering and freedom, but he can’t have both.
There are also a couple of significant sub-plots.
I daresay this book is a little romanticised in the way it portrays the values of rural Texas of 1906 – with a few notable exceptions the people are all honest, loyal and hospitable. However you also get the sense that Kelton was close enough to the time and place to capture it. I could be picky about the characters being archetypes, but I’m not going to because this book is just so enjoyable to read. I absolutely loved it.
Kelton was born in 1926 (d.2009) and his father had been foreman of a ranch near Crane, Texas. He wrote this book after his father had suffered a stroke and comments in his Introduction that “The Good Old Boys was written on two levels. On the surface it was intended to be a humorous and good-natured look at West Texas country life of that period…But on another, less obvious level, I wrote in sadness, a lament for a less pressurised time and a simpler way of life that had died, as my father was dying.”
An difficult mix to pull off, you might think, but it works brilliantly. This novel manages to be both humorous and elegiac.
Kelton says that his lead character, Hewey Calloway, is based on several of the cowboys he knew during his boyhood in the 1930s, although the novel is set a generation earlier in 1906. Hewey is an old-style cowboy, riding all over the western US, earning enough to live on by working on ranches, and then moving on.
“Ain’t you ever found anywhere you wanted to stay?”
“Just about every place, at first. Then directly I get to thinkin’ there might be somethin’ better down the road.”
“But it’s never there, is it?”
“It’s always there, for a little while.”
Hewey lives for the moment. He is in his late 30s but his life is a sort of permanent adolescence. This is where most of the book’s humour comes in. People find different things funny, but for me the humour worked superbly. There were a couple of comic scenes in particular, at Chapters 4 and 7, that had me rocking with laughter.
The book’s other main characters are Hewey’s sister-in-law Eve, his brother Walter and their two sons. They are homesteaders, and thus represent the opposite kind of life from Hewey, one of responsibility, financial worries, and unrelenting hard work. On the other hand they have each other as family, their own land, and their own home, all things Hewey does not have. On a visit to see Walter’s family, Hewey meets a woman he falls for, and is faced with a choice. He wants both to live with the woman and to continue his life of wandering and freedom, but he can’t have both.
There are also a couple of significant sub-plots.
I daresay this book is a little romanticised in the way it portrays the values of rural Texas of 1906 – with a few notable exceptions the people are all honest, loyal and hospitable. However you also get the sense that Kelton was close enough to the time and place to capture it. I could be picky about the characters being archetypes, but I’m not going to because this book is just so enjoyable to read. I absolutely loved it.
January 25, 2023
I added this book to my shelf in 2014 when I joined Goodreads but did not post a review until today (09/14/22)
REREAD
Hewey Calloway is one of the good old boys whose only ambition is to be a cowboy forever, and, in the year 1906, that makes him a living anachronism, for the life he desires to live forever has had its place in the sun, but that sun has set.
As Elmer Kelton writes in the introduction to my copy of the book:
The story opens with Hewey riding toward the homestead that his younger brother is farming in west Texas, but he approaches with trepidation. He expects a warm welcome from his brother and his nephews, but he knows that his appearance will not be welcomed by Eve, his sister-in-law, who seemed to always like him more when he was going than when he was coming.
Before Walter married Eve he was a footloose good old boy, just like his brother, and beginning at an early age they had ridden many a trail together. After their marriage Eve insisted that Walter take a job as a ranch foreman rather than jumping from one job to another as he once did, and as Hewey still did.
She grew dissatisfied with their situation on the ranch and she talked Walter into filing a homestead claim so that they could raise their two sons on land that they owned. Walter, cowboy, became Walter, farmer.
Eve fears the effect that Hewey might have on Walter and their two sons. She is afraid that Walter may be influenced by Hewey and long for the days in which he too had the freedom to roam at will. She knows that Hewey loves her sons and they love him in return, but she is fearful that they might grow up to emulate their uncle.
Fourteen-year old Tommy has grown a good deal in the two years since Hewey last saw him, but he is young enough that he still worships his Uncle Hewey. Cotton, age sixteen, is a different story. He has not only grown, he has changed, and he has grown distant from both Hewey and his parents.
Hewey is thirty-seven, never married, and possesses no desire to change that situation, at least not until he meets the boys’ teacher, Miss Spring Renfro. This causes him to examine and re-examine the life he has chosen to pursue.
Kelton writes in the introduction:
Which road will he choose? Will it be the open road or a settled life with Miss Renfro?
******
The Good Old Boys is not taken as seriously as Kelton’s other critically-acclaimed novels, primarily because it is a comic novel. All of Kelton’s books have some humor in them, but The Good Old Boys features it throughout the book.
I give you Hewey Calloway, philosopher:
If a bath always felt this good, I would take one every week or two.
He had never seen harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable. The motive in this case would be to keep Eve from raising hell and later regretting her lapse from grace. It had always been his policy to protect her from herself.
I was ducked for a Baptist. But the water didn’t soak very deep. I taken up my old and willful ways again pretty soon.
I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church.
If it cost a hundred dollars to go to heaven I maybe make it to Fort Worth.
And Hewey Calloway, citizen:
I’m a free-born American. I even went to war. I’d be a taxpayer, and proud to say it, if I owned anything to pay taxes on.
And finally:
Folks have got to take me like I am or leave me alone. (But does that apply to Miss Renfro? I ain't tellin'.)
.
REREAD
Hewey Calloway is one of the good old boys whose only ambition is to be a cowboy forever, and, in the year 1906, that makes him a living anachronism, for the life he desires to live forever has had its place in the sun, but that sun has set.
As Elmer Kelton writes in the introduction to my copy of the book:
[Hewey] tries to remain a horseback man while the world relentlessly moves into a machine age…. He lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change.
The story opens with Hewey riding toward the homestead that his younger brother is farming in west Texas, but he approaches with trepidation. He expects a warm welcome from his brother and his nephews, but he knows that his appearance will not be welcomed by Eve, his sister-in-law, who seemed to always like him more when he was going than when he was coming.
Before Walter married Eve he was a footloose good old boy, just like his brother, and beginning at an early age they had ridden many a trail together. After their marriage Eve insisted that Walter take a job as a ranch foreman rather than jumping from one job to another as he once did, and as Hewey still did.
She grew dissatisfied with their situation on the ranch and she talked Walter into filing a homestead claim so that they could raise their two sons on land that they owned. Walter, cowboy, became Walter, farmer.
Eve fears the effect that Hewey might have on Walter and their two sons. She is afraid that Walter may be influenced by Hewey and long for the days in which he too had the freedom to roam at will. She knows that Hewey loves her sons and they love him in return, but she is fearful that they might grow up to emulate their uncle.
Eve was always lecturing him about settling down, about responsibility, respectability, always trying to change him. The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.
Fourteen-year old Tommy has grown a good deal in the two years since Hewey last saw him, but he is young enough that he still worships his Uncle Hewey. Cotton, age sixteen, is a different story. He has not only grown, he has changed, and he has grown distant from both Hewey and his parents.
Cotton talked of the future as a time of automobiles and great machines and fantastic inventions waiting to burst forth upon the world. Hewey shuddered. He tried, but could picture no place in such a world for him. The wonders that made the future look golden to Cotton made it bleak and terrifying to Hewey.
Hewey is thirty-seven, never married, and possesses no desire to change that situation, at least not until he meets the boys’ teacher, Miss Spring Renfro. This causes him to examine and re-examine the life he has chosen to pursue.
Kelton writes in the introduction:
To fulfill a wish we often give up something of equal or nearly equal value. Hewey feels drawn to the life his brother Walter has found: a home, a family, a piece of land that is his own. But to have it he knows he must give up his freedom to go where he pleases, when he pleases, to travel his own road without considering the needs of someone else….
He cannot have it all; nobody can.
Which road will he choose? Will it be the open road or a settled life with Miss Renfro?
******
The Good Old Boys is not taken as seriously as Kelton’s other critically-acclaimed novels, primarily because it is a comic novel. All of Kelton’s books have some humor in them, but The Good Old Boys features it throughout the book.
I give you Hewey Calloway, philosopher:
If a bath always felt this good, I would take one every week or two.
He had never seen harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable. The motive in this case would be to keep Eve from raising hell and later regretting her lapse from grace. It had always been his policy to protect her from herself.
I was ducked for a Baptist. But the water didn’t soak very deep. I taken up my old and willful ways again pretty soon.
I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church.
If it cost a hundred dollars to go to heaven I maybe make it to Fort Worth.
And Hewey Calloway, citizen:
I’m a free-born American. I even went to war. I’d be a taxpayer, and proud to say it, if I owned anything to pay taxes on.
And finally:
Folks have got to take me like I am or leave me alone. (But does that apply to Miss Renfro? I ain't tellin'.)
.
November 24, 2022
“Hewey Calloway tries to live a life that is already out of its time. He attempts to remain a horseback man while the world relentlessly moves into a machine age. He tries to hold to the open range of recent memory even after that range has been cubed and diced and parceled by barbed wire. He lives in an impossible dream, trying to remain changeless in a world where the only constant is change.” - Elmer Kelton, Introduction
The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.
Hewey Calloway is a man out of time. He is a cowboy in a world that is rapidly becoming infested with automobiles. He likes to believe his way of life is indestructible, but he looks around him and sees fewer men like himself and more like his brother, Walter, who has succumbed to the lure of a farm and responsibilities of a family.
This novel is written in a light and humorous tone, and there is much to laugh at in Hewey. He is marvelously candid and logical, and I found myself rooting for his survival.
He had never seen any harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable.
I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church house.
Lots of people talk about what the Lord wants. Wonder how many has ever asked Him.
Looks to me like if they want people to pay attention to the rules, the rules ought to make sense.
Therein lies the problem, because the only life that makes sense for Hewey is a free one, and all he sees around him are ways in which men’s freedoms are curtailed. None of the joys of the town can usurp the pleasures of the range for Hewey. He still breaks mustangs, and in many ways he is one.
Despite the humor, there is a current of sadness that runs through this novel for me. It is the sadness of loss. If we are honest, each of us who lives a long life will see our way disappear to make room for whatever changes the future brings. I have felt it myself with the advent of technology. I live with it, even relish parts of it, but I know in my heart that I would trade it in a heartbeat to go back to that world in which a book could only be found at a library, a bookstore, or a drugstore paperback rack; when summer meant pedaling all over town on bicycles with your friends and an occasional milkshake at the pharmacy lunch counter; when Sundays were for church and dinner at Grandma’s and excitement was bag lunch day at school.
The world moves on, and if you do not move with it, it will leave you behind. But, there are worse things than being a “good old boy”, worse things than being an anachronism, provided you can manage to keep the part of you that makes you who you are.
The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same.
Hewey Calloway is a man out of time. He is a cowboy in a world that is rapidly becoming infested with automobiles. He likes to believe his way of life is indestructible, but he looks around him and sees fewer men like himself and more like his brother, Walter, who has succumbed to the lure of a farm and responsibilities of a family.
This novel is written in a light and humorous tone, and there is much to laugh at in Hewey. He is marvelously candid and logical, and I found myself rooting for his survival.
He had never seen any harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable.
I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church house.
Lots of people talk about what the Lord wants. Wonder how many has ever asked Him.
Looks to me like if they want people to pay attention to the rules, the rules ought to make sense.
Therein lies the problem, because the only life that makes sense for Hewey is a free one, and all he sees around him are ways in which men’s freedoms are curtailed. None of the joys of the town can usurp the pleasures of the range for Hewey. He still breaks mustangs, and in many ways he is one.
Despite the humor, there is a current of sadness that runs through this novel for me. It is the sadness of loss. If we are honest, each of us who lives a long life will see our way disappear to make room for whatever changes the future brings. I have felt it myself with the advent of technology. I live with it, even relish parts of it, but I know in my heart that I would trade it in a heartbeat to go back to that world in which a book could only be found at a library, a bookstore, or a drugstore paperback rack; when summer meant pedaling all over town on bicycles with your friends and an occasional milkshake at the pharmacy lunch counter; when Sundays were for church and dinner at Grandma’s and excitement was bag lunch day at school.
The world moves on, and if you do not move with it, it will leave you behind. But, there are worse things than being a “good old boy”, worse things than being an anachronism, provided you can manage to keep the part of you that makes you who you are.
November 9, 2022
I went back and forth with myself about whether this should be 4 or 5 stars, but you know what? I enjoyed it and loved the writing and the main character and got so much satisfaction from the ending...all that is good enough for 5 stars anyway you look at it.
Hewey Calloway is a dying breed in 1906. He's an old school cowboy with both feet planted firmly in the past. His place is on the back of a horse, roaming the west, working when he feels like it, choosing an unsettled life of taking what comes instead of settling down. He hates fences and rules and now those dadblamed automobiles are showing up occasionally in towns. Progress is not his friend, even though his 16 year old nephew believes machines are the wave of the future. His brother has settled into farming, his sister-in-law is trying to nag him into getting married and settling down. But Hewey is just a good old boy who knows he has to be true to himself and his nature. So....trouble ensues.
How Hewey handles all these things is the gist of this book. He has a sense of humor, too much common sense for civilization, and a big heart. I loved him.
Hewey Calloway is a dying breed in 1906. He's an old school cowboy with both feet planted firmly in the past. His place is on the back of a horse, roaming the west, working when he feels like it, choosing an unsettled life of taking what comes instead of settling down. He hates fences and rules and now those dadblamed automobiles are showing up occasionally in towns. Progress is not his friend, even though his 16 year old nephew believes machines are the wave of the future. His brother has settled into farming, his sister-in-law is trying to nag him into getting married and settling down. But Hewey is just a good old boy who knows he has to be true to himself and his nature. So....trouble ensues.
How Hewey handles all these things is the gist of this book. He has a sense of humor, too much common sense for civilization, and a big heart. I loved him.
November 16, 2022
What an excellent book! All of the characters in this book were written pitch perfect, I was so invested in their stories. Hewie is a cowboy of the utmost integrity, a drifter and a bit of a comic. A counterpoint to his brother and sister-in-law who are farming their bit of land; and ultimately his nephew Cotton, who's vision is to the upcoming future of automobiles and mechanical things. I laughed out loud and shed tears-well worth the reading out of my normal genres.
November 22, 2022
"For a man with just one good shirt to his name, you're about as rich a man as I know. . . You've got the one treasure the rest of us can never have - freedom. Any day the notion strikes you, you can saddle old Biscuit and just ride away."
"The Good Old Boys" tells the story of Hewey Calloway, a cowboy who visits his brother, Walter, and his family. Walter, Eve, and their two sons work long hours on their small Texas farm with the threat of a bank foreclosure hanging over them. Hewey avoids commitment, and comes back with tall tales about his adventures in new places. Eve worries that Hewey will risk loneliness and injuries out on the trail by himself as he ages.
Walter's oldest son, Cotton, has great mechanical skills. He can see his future in the modern industrial world, and is especially interested in the newest invention - automobiles. His interests contrast with Hewey's who has no desire to go any faster than a horse.
The story is about making choices so you are true to yourself and use your special talents. It also celebrates the hard-working people who settled in Texas in the early 20th Century. Although it deals with important ideas, the writing is very humorous so it's a book that's hard to put down. Even though I rarely read Westerns, I found Elmer Kelton to be an exceptional writer with his sense of history and his portrayal of interesting, independent characters.
"The Good Old Boys" tells the story of Hewey Calloway, a cowboy who visits his brother, Walter, and his family. Walter, Eve, and their two sons work long hours on their small Texas farm with the threat of a bank foreclosure hanging over them. Hewey avoids commitment, and comes back with tall tales about his adventures in new places. Eve worries that Hewey will risk loneliness and injuries out on the trail by himself as he ages.
Walter's oldest son, Cotton, has great mechanical skills. He can see his future in the modern industrial world, and is especially interested in the newest invention - automobiles. His interests contrast with Hewey's who has no desire to go any faster than a horse.
The story is about making choices so you are true to yourself and use your special talents. It also celebrates the hard-working people who settled in Texas in the early 20th Century. Although it deals with important ideas, the writing is very humorous so it's a book that's hard to put down. Even though I rarely read Westerns, I found Elmer Kelton to be an exceptional writer with his sense of history and his portrayal of interesting, independent characters.
November 4, 2022
"That was what had started the quarrel the last time, and most of the others he could remember. Eve was always lecturing him about settling down, about responsibility, respectability, always trying to change him. The way Hewey saw it, the Lord had purposely made every person different. He could not understand why so many people were determined to thwart the Lord’s work by making everyone the same."
This story takes place in the early 1900's West Texas but Kelton writes a story that is timeless with most having been witness to or part of a settling down lecture. Hewey Calloway is cowboy and drifter who loves the freedom of exploring the land on horseback and answering to no one. He fears his way of life is being ruined by fences and automobiles and other outside pressures. When he stops to visit his Brother's farm he slowly starts seeing some advantages he's been missing. This heartwarming story is filled with love and humor. It's an ode to the beauty of being different but also how most life choices involve a sacrifice.
Kelton wrote this story after his dad's stroke and was feeling quite sentimental. Sentimental it is, but it's not formulaic. It feels real every step of the way with it's wonderfully drawn characters and situations. There is an unexpected ending that is as respectful as if these were real life people. I'll definitely read more from Elmer Kelton who I'd never have discovered without the wonderful "On the Southern Literary Trail" group.
This story takes place in the early 1900's West Texas but Kelton writes a story that is timeless with most having been witness to or part of a settling down lecture. Hewey Calloway is cowboy and drifter who loves the freedom of exploring the land on horseback and answering to no one. He fears his way of life is being ruined by fences and automobiles and other outside pressures. When he stops to visit his Brother's farm he slowly starts seeing some advantages he's been missing. This heartwarming story is filled with love and humor. It's an ode to the beauty of being different but also how most life choices involve a sacrifice.
Kelton wrote this story after his dad's stroke and was feeling quite sentimental. Sentimental it is, but it's not formulaic. It feels real every step of the way with it's wonderfully drawn characters and situations. There is an unexpected ending that is as respectful as if these were real life people. I'll definitely read more from Elmer Kelton who I'd never have discovered without the wonderful "On the Southern Literary Trail" group.
November 15, 2022
“Ain’t you ever found anywhere you wanted to stay?”
“Just about every place, at first. Then directly I get to thinkin’ there might be somethin’ better down the road.”
“But it’s never there, is it?”
“It’s always there, for a little while.”
Hewey Calloway is a lovable, goodhearted, old-school cowboy who at age 38 is still consumed by wanderlust, despite his family’s urgings to settle down and make a new life with local schoolteacher Spring Renfro. Times are changing for the cowboys of old with the invention of the automobile and the proliferation of barbed wire fences: “Something about a fence seemed always to choke him a little, to cut off the flow of air like shutting a door into a room.” The open range isn’t so open any more, the “big and wild and wide open” harder and harder to find. Hewey has strong feelings for Miss Renfro and is dedicated to his brother and nephews, neighbors and friends in this West Texas outpost. But which part of his heart will Hewey ultimately follow? Love for Spring or untethered freedom?
Parts of this novel were a bit sentimental for me, and the loose ends hogtied a little tight for my taste, but the book is beautifully written and holds some of the wittiest and wisest one-liners I’ve ever read. I loved each of Kelton’s intricate and entertaining characters, even Old Lady Faversham, and will definitely revisit this prolific, award winning and much loved author. Another excellent selection by the group ‘On The Southern Literary Trail.’
“He had never seen any harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable.”
“I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church house.”
“There’s no use pokin’ dead ashes.”
“Just about every place, at first. Then directly I get to thinkin’ there might be somethin’ better down the road.”
“But it’s never there, is it?”
“It’s always there, for a little while.”
Hewey Calloway is a lovable, goodhearted, old-school cowboy who at age 38 is still consumed by wanderlust, despite his family’s urgings to settle down and make a new life with local schoolteacher Spring Renfro. Times are changing for the cowboys of old with the invention of the automobile and the proliferation of barbed wire fences: “Something about a fence seemed always to choke him a little, to cut off the flow of air like shutting a door into a room.” The open range isn’t so open any more, the “big and wild and wide open” harder and harder to find. Hewey has strong feelings for Miss Renfro and is dedicated to his brother and nephews, neighbors and friends in this West Texas outpost. But which part of his heart will Hewey ultimately follow? Love for Spring or untethered freedom?
Parts of this novel were a bit sentimental for me, and the loose ends hogtied a little tight for my taste, but the book is beautifully written and holds some of the wittiest and wisest one-liners I’ve ever read. I loved each of Kelton’s intricate and entertaining characters, even Old Lady Faversham, and will definitely revisit this prolific, award winning and much loved author. Another excellent selection by the group ‘On The Southern Literary Trail.’
“He had never seen any harm in an occasional small liberty with the facts, provided the motive was honorable.”
“I always liked God better when I found Him outdoors. He always seemed too big to fit into a little-bitty cramped-up church house.”
“There’s no use pokin’ dead ashes.”
March 14, 2020
One of Kelton's best. Published by TCU Press. How often do universities publish 'westerns'?
Multiple high praise reviews.
Here's a review I liked
"My old friend, Elmer Kelton, was about as West Texas as anybody could be. He was born in West Texas, grew up in West Texas, wrote books that were about places like West Texas, and in 2009 died in West Texas.
But of all his books — and there were many — one, “The Good Old Boys” — reeks of West Texas. To a great extent that is because the book’s main character, Hewey Calloway, is exactly like a lot of the people I have known in my lifetime. They talk, act and, yes, even make the same stupid mistakes that the people in real life do. But that is what made Kelton’s books so enjoyable. His characters were believable because they were just like us. ..."
https://www.oaoa.com/community/good_n...
Multiple high praise reviews.
Here's a review I liked
"My old friend, Elmer Kelton, was about as West Texas as anybody could be. He was born in West Texas, grew up in West Texas, wrote books that were about places like West Texas, and in 2009 died in West Texas.
But of all his books — and there were many — one, “The Good Old Boys” — reeks of West Texas. To a great extent that is because the book’s main character, Hewey Calloway, is exactly like a lot of the people I have known in my lifetime. They talk, act and, yes, even make the same stupid mistakes that the people in real life do. But that is what made Kelton’s books so enjoyable. His characters were believable because they were just like us. ..."
https://www.oaoa.com/community/good_n...
November 15, 2025
Hewey Calloway is a real cowboy at a time where the need for cowboys is fast declining.
Hewey will tell you that he has seen a great deal of North America cowboying from Mexico to Canada and now, in his late 30s, he thinks he is in his prime. Most of the rest of the world thinks differently including his brother, Walter. Walter and his wife, Eve, have two sons who admire Hewey but everybody but the cowboy knows that the horse is being replaced by the motor vehicle.
"Walter had tried at the time to persuade Hewey to take up a homestead for himself. The temptation had been strong—for a couple of days. But Hewey contended that land ownership worked two ways. A man might own the land, but the land also owned him."
When after several years, Hewey wanders back to see his brother, it is a tense time. Walter is glad to see him, but Eve, not so much. She sees Hewey as a temptation to her husband to get back to the “cowboy life.” She defends her home against all that.
"“I ain’t changed any. You’ll be mad again if I stay long.” She took another step. “I know. You can be an exasperatin’ man, Hewey. I’ll bet there’s not three things in this whole world that we agree on, you and me. But the next time I get mad, you just go off out of my sight awhile and give me a little time. You don’t have to stay gone for two years.”
Hewey is a legend to his nephews, Cotton and Tommy, and he thinks everything will be the same in this visit.
"The boys had no grandparents to spoil them, so Uncle Hewey had served that function. Riding in at intervals, doing his mischief, telling them stories that would never have stood the scrutiny of a court, playing hell with family discipline, he would then ride cheerfully away to greener pastures without having to assume any responsibility for the chaos he had wrought. He had all the privileges of a grandparent but was saddled with only half the age."
Hewey’s past encounters might be catching up with him and a friendly sheriff advises him to “keep moving.”
“I just don’t like people tryin’ to run my life for me, tellin’ me what to do. I don’t do that to other people, and I don’t want them doin’ it to me. When I go someplace it’s because I want to, and when I leave it’s because I want to.” “I’m not crowdin’ you, Hewey. At least I’m tryin’ not to.” “It ain’t you, it’s them.” He felt somehow trapped. He doubled his fist and beat it against the bar. Hopefully the sheriff asked, “That mean you’re fixin’ to leave?” Hewey had hit the bar too hard. He rubbed the aching hand. “It means I’ll think about it.” “All right, Hewey. I just don’t want you on my conscience.”"
Kelton puts Hewey Callahan squarely between the past and future. Not just the dying need for cowboying. Technology and the “horseless carriage” are coming to the ranches and farms. In addition, the next generation, exemplified by Cotton, sees the world in a different way that Hewey can. Furthermore, Kelton doesn’t “sugarcoat” the fate of old cowboys.
"Hewey had heard old stories about Boy Rasmussen. He had been a great cowboy in his prime, pushing herds up the trail from South Texas to the railroads in Kansas, and beyond to the Indian reservations in Wyoming and Montana. There had been a time, before the years and the bottle had robbed him of dependability, that he had bossed herds and been a man of substance and repute. But the years had not been benevolent. Whatever might once have been was gone now. All that remained was a shell, a lonely and pathetic remnant, a burned-out relic of another time…He was a chuckline rider, too old anymore to find any steady work, existing off of the kindness of others, and off of grudging charity when he found no kindness. Almost nobody in this country would turn an old man away hungry, but there were some who would make him pay a price in shame and humility."
The legendary cowboy characteristics of perseverance in hardship, code of honor and chivalry are all on display in this novel. Kelton makes it work on several levels: giving us a simple story of a cowboy making ends meet, while at the same time showing us what life was really like in that corner of the world as an era was coming to its end.
My GR friend Howard’s review includes some great quotes illustrating Hewey’s philosophy of life.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4.5
Hewey will tell you that he has seen a great deal of North America cowboying from Mexico to Canada and now, in his late 30s, he thinks he is in his prime. Most of the rest of the world thinks differently including his brother, Walter. Walter and his wife, Eve, have two sons who admire Hewey but everybody but the cowboy knows that the horse is being replaced by the motor vehicle.
"Walter had tried at the time to persuade Hewey to take up a homestead for himself. The temptation had been strong—for a couple of days. But Hewey contended that land ownership worked two ways. A man might own the land, but the land also owned him."
When after several years, Hewey wanders back to see his brother, it is a tense time. Walter is glad to see him, but Eve, not so much. She sees Hewey as a temptation to her husband to get back to the “cowboy life.” She defends her home against all that.
"“I ain’t changed any. You’ll be mad again if I stay long.” She took another step. “I know. You can be an exasperatin’ man, Hewey. I’ll bet there’s not three things in this whole world that we agree on, you and me. But the next time I get mad, you just go off out of my sight awhile and give me a little time. You don’t have to stay gone for two years.”
Hewey is a legend to his nephews, Cotton and Tommy, and he thinks everything will be the same in this visit.
"The boys had no grandparents to spoil them, so Uncle Hewey had served that function. Riding in at intervals, doing his mischief, telling them stories that would never have stood the scrutiny of a court, playing hell with family discipline, he would then ride cheerfully away to greener pastures without having to assume any responsibility for the chaos he had wrought. He had all the privileges of a grandparent but was saddled with only half the age."
Hewey’s past encounters might be catching up with him and a friendly sheriff advises him to “keep moving.”
“I just don’t like people tryin’ to run my life for me, tellin’ me what to do. I don’t do that to other people, and I don’t want them doin’ it to me. When I go someplace it’s because I want to, and when I leave it’s because I want to.” “I’m not crowdin’ you, Hewey. At least I’m tryin’ not to.” “It ain’t you, it’s them.” He felt somehow trapped. He doubled his fist and beat it against the bar. Hopefully the sheriff asked, “That mean you’re fixin’ to leave?” Hewey had hit the bar too hard. He rubbed the aching hand. “It means I’ll think about it.” “All right, Hewey. I just don’t want you on my conscience.”"
Kelton puts Hewey Callahan squarely between the past and future. Not just the dying need for cowboying. Technology and the “horseless carriage” are coming to the ranches and farms. In addition, the next generation, exemplified by Cotton, sees the world in a different way that Hewey can. Furthermore, Kelton doesn’t “sugarcoat” the fate of old cowboys.
"Hewey had heard old stories about Boy Rasmussen. He had been a great cowboy in his prime, pushing herds up the trail from South Texas to the railroads in Kansas, and beyond to the Indian reservations in Wyoming and Montana. There had been a time, before the years and the bottle had robbed him of dependability, that he had bossed herds and been a man of substance and repute. But the years had not been benevolent. Whatever might once have been was gone now. All that remained was a shell, a lonely and pathetic remnant, a burned-out relic of another time…He was a chuckline rider, too old anymore to find any steady work, existing off of the kindness of others, and off of grudging charity when he found no kindness. Almost nobody in this country would turn an old man away hungry, but there were some who would make him pay a price in shame and humility."
The legendary cowboy characteristics of perseverance in hardship, code of honor and chivalry are all on display in this novel. Kelton makes it work on several levels: giving us a simple story of a cowboy making ends meet, while at the same time showing us what life was really like in that corner of the world as an era was coming to its end.
My GR friend Howard’s review includes some great quotes illustrating Hewey’s philosophy of life.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4.5
January 28, 2010
The truth inside stories is what makes them good, in any genre, and I think Kelton did a wonderful job with this book. Close to his own heart, and based in part on his own family and experiences, Kelton's story of the Calloways is one of the best westerns I've ever read. (The movie of the same name with Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek was very good, too, and stays quite true to the book.) There aren't a lot of unexpected plot twists or blazing shoot-outs, no lovely rancher daughters in distress or indians swooping down hillsides in full war paint. And while there is romance (not to mention more than a few good laughs), this book is also very much about familial love, friendship, sacrifice, determination, and integrity. It is a story of the early 20th century West where farmers and ranchers butted heads, where good land was as scarce as good water, open range was becoming obsolete, and automobiles invaded like scouts of an advancing enemy army. It is a story about choices and consequences, and how getting something important almost always means losing something else just as valuable. And it's about common men trying to make their way in a world that keeps sliding out from under them. Yes, five stars, in any genre.
November 13, 2022
Absolutely solid 4 star read. There were so many philosophical - and witty! - one-liners delivered by Hewey (our protagonist), his family, and other community members. The events in this story are set in 1906. What Kelton does in this narrative is use relatable characters to illustrate the often brutal day-to-day lives of hard-working, sowing / harvest / praying for a good price at market homesteaders ("paycheck to paycheck" for those of us not familiar with farming). I like to think that humorous witticisms like those provided by Kelton's characters, helped our real life farming ancestors endure the hardships that they faced.
(Note: I read this with the GR "On the Southern Literary Trail" group for our pre-1990 November 2022 selection.)
(Note: I read this with the GR "On the Southern Literary Trail" group for our pre-1990 November 2022 selection.)
November 1, 2022
Excellent period piece of 1906 Western scrub land Texas. And not only about cowboys and cattle either.
Men, the way they were. And in some places still are. Not only about work but with work core to decision. And path taken. And authority recognized. Or NOT!
Eve wasn't bad either.
Loved this one. Very rarely do we of age meet up with books or tales that hold a total cognition of the period our own grandparents remembered. And talked about too within great detail. To us.
Good people with myriads of hard spots to cross. Thinking and doing being entirely different definition of category and nuance too, IMHO. The ones who saw the first automobile. Or understood FREEDOM of decision NOT arbitrated by elite authority.
I will read more of his. He knows his people and his life's location. More than well. And can parse it too. RARE! This is NOT just about Texas. But about change and men's nature/ core. It could/ and did happen on other continents too. Very similar. To be alone with itchy feet or NOT. Commitment!
Just exactly like the good intent majority of most of my life. No swears, no big time whining and back talk. And for majority of days, not a one broke of all 10 commandments.
Men, the way they were. And in some places still are. Not only about work but with work core to decision. And path taken. And authority recognized. Or NOT!
Eve wasn't bad either.
Loved this one. Very rarely do we of age meet up with books or tales that hold a total cognition of the period our own grandparents remembered. And talked about too within great detail. To us.
Good people with myriads of hard spots to cross. Thinking and doing being entirely different definition of category and nuance too, IMHO. The ones who saw the first automobile. Or understood FREEDOM of decision NOT arbitrated by elite authority.
I will read more of his. He knows his people and his life's location. More than well. And can parse it too. RARE! This is NOT just about Texas. But about change and men's nature/ core. It could/ and did happen on other continents too. Very similar. To be alone with itchy feet or NOT. Commitment!
Just exactly like the good intent majority of most of my life. No swears, no big time whining and back talk. And for majority of days, not a one broke of all 10 commandments.
March 4, 2009
One of the men this book is dedicated to was very special to me during my childhood. He made a big impact on my life. During the drought of the 1950s, my Daddy left to go work in the oil patch leaving my Mom at home with 3 little girls. Raymond Glasscock stopped by every day to check to be sure we were all OK.
Mr. Kelton worked with him on the McElroy ranch....
I picked up my copy at one of Mr. Kelton's book signings held at the Cactus Bookstore in San Angelo, TX.
Mr. Kelton worked with him on the McElroy ranch....
I picked up my copy at one of Mr. Kelton's book signings held at the Cactus Bookstore in San Angelo, TX.
April 21, 2017
Kelton does it again. When he's on his game, he's a hard author to top. Ranks up there with "The Time it Never Rained" and "The Day the Cowboys Quit." You don't need to be a fan of the western genre to appreciate his storytelling talents that expand beyond the typical.
November 20, 2022
Good old fashioned 1973 award winning book about a rambling cowboy Hewey Calloway. When his brother’s family needs his help on the ranch, he steps in to assist and ends up flirting with the idea of finally settling down.
This is an author that my Southern Literary Trail Bookclub has been enjoying.
4.5 stars
This is an author that my Southern Literary Trail Bookclub has been enjoying.
4.5 stars
April 1, 2008
Kelton's story of the clash between the old and new ways is set in early 1900's west Texas, but the themes he raises are relevant today. Hewey Calloway, the old time cowpunching hero of the novel, decides to visit his brother on his farm after a winter on a New Mexico ranch. During his travels and visit, he encounters officious lawmen, barbed wire, and rules and conventions that go against his free roaming philosophy. While successfully avoiding the traps that the new ways of doing things have laid for him, he is surprised and pleased by the attentions of Spring Renfro, the 'old maid' school teacher who catches his eye.
I suggested this book a few years ago for our local book group and was curious to hear the feedback from the group. I am a native Texan currently living in southern Connecticut, and Kelton's novels always breathe a breath of home for me. I'm a natural part of the audience for his books. However, the book group I attend is made up of mostly female (only one other man besides myself) New England natives who, although they have wide ranging taste in books, have expressed zero interest in books of the Western genre. After assuring them that this wasn't a traditional Western in the Zane Grey-Louis L'Amour vein, the group indulged my choice. I was pleasantly surprised at the universal praise for 'The Good Old Boys'. There were no dissenters (which is unusual, bordering on unheard of); everyone at the meeting loved the book! Some members have gone on to read other of Kelton's works.
This book is the number one of my Top 5 Desert Island books. You read it now!
I suggested this book a few years ago for our local book group and was curious to hear the feedback from the group. I am a native Texan currently living in southern Connecticut, and Kelton's novels always breathe a breath of home for me. I'm a natural part of the audience for his books. However, the book group I attend is made up of mostly female (only one other man besides myself) New England natives who, although they have wide ranging taste in books, have expressed zero interest in books of the Western genre. After assuring them that this wasn't a traditional Western in the Zane Grey-Louis L'Amour vein, the group indulged my choice. I was pleasantly surprised at the universal praise for 'The Good Old Boys'. There were no dissenters (which is unusual, bordering on unheard of); everyone at the meeting loved the book! Some members have gone on to read other of Kelton's works.
This book is the number one of my Top 5 Desert Island books. You read it now!
November 15, 2022
This may be one of Elmer Kelton's more nostalgic books, as it is set in much of the country where he lived as a youngster and young man. Hewey Calloway is an old-time cowboy who loves his rambling life, filled with few cares or possessions. He returns to the Upton County area of West Texas to visit his brother Walter and his family on the small place they have bought outside Upton City (based on the actual Upland, first county seat there). Without meaning to, his carefree ways lead him into what seem harmless pranks that lead to serious consequences for Walter and his survival on the land. Along the way, Hewey falls for the local schoolteacher Spring Renfro, but has real difficulty coming to grips with a life with her. The events of the book are quite realistic. There is no gunplay and dramatic battles. Rather, the real struggle is Hewey's--attempting to come to terms with the changing times at the beginning of the twentieth century. The characters are well-drawn. I feel like Fat Gervin is a bit of a stereotype. He does live up to his bad reputation, but one almost feels a bit sorry for him as he is ruthlessly bullied by eveyone else. One can "ride" with Hewey and enjoy the feel of the footloose freedom, yet also realize that his most likely future is to die busted and alone, like one of the other old-timers in the tale.
August 5, 2023
Good Old Boys is on par with what I've already read by Elmer Kelton and it's good news 'cause he's an awesome author!
Kelton had the talent to tell a western story without being a classic western story as you could expect when reading the genre. No robbery, no outlaw, no unfriendly indians. Kelton renders a novel that matches all the markers of realism. Hewey's life at the turn of the century and the renewal of his world, restraining his liberty with fences and his job with automobiles could have been a testimony of a real Good Old Boy. It almost seems like it could be a biography of sort.
Kelton had all my attention when reading this, even though the genre isn't at all what I usually like to read and keep me interested till the end.
You clearly should read Kelton once, just to get a sense of what makes him the most rewarded western author.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Kelton had the talent to tell a western story without being a classic western story as you could expect when reading the genre. No robbery, no outlaw, no unfriendly indians. Kelton renders a novel that matches all the markers of realism. Hewey's life at the turn of the century and the renewal of his world, restraining his liberty with fences and his job with automobiles could have been a testimony of a real Good Old Boy. It almost seems like it could be a biography of sort.
Kelton had all my attention when reading this, even though the genre isn't at all what I usually like to read and keep me interested till the end.
You clearly should read Kelton once, just to get a sense of what makes him the most rewarded western author.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
April 14, 2016
This book..
This book was heartbreaking to me. Without including major spoilers, I will tell you I absolutely loved this book. And going into the final chapter or two, it was receiving 5 stars from me.
Again Kelton wins at character development and the little details. And George Guidall narrating on the audiobook, you have a perfect reading storm.
And the plot twists and turns will keep you on your toes and remind you that with a Kelton book, never try to predict an ending!
Must read. Although, please read Six Bits A Day first, the prequel to this and the next book. It adds even more dimension to the already stellar plot and characters.
This book was heartbreaking to me. Without including major spoilers, I will tell you I absolutely loved this book. And going into the final chapter or two, it was receiving 5 stars from me.
Again Kelton wins at character development and the little details. And George Guidall narrating on the audiobook, you have a perfect reading storm.
And the plot twists and turns will keep you on your toes and remind you that with a Kelton book, never try to predict an ending!
Must read. Although, please read Six Bits A Day first, the prequel to this and the next book. It adds even more dimension to the already stellar plot and characters.
December 15, 2022
I don't often read westerns, aside from a few Louis L'Amour books, but one of the reasons I picked this one up was because it is set in West Texas, where I grew up. "Good Old Boys" is Texan for a particular type of club (it may mean different things to others) made up of men who grew up tough as shoe leather, working long hard hours from the time they were knee-high to a grasshopper, usually cowboys or ranchers, or men who work the land - and believe me, West Texas is a tough place to be a farmer.
Hewey Calloway is a cowboy in a time that is just on the cusp of major changes. The old free range, where the cowboys drove cattle north from Mexico and Texas to the railheads in Kansas, is being fenced in by barbed wire. Automobiles and trains are beginning to replace the horse as the major mode of transportation, especially in the cities, but more slowly in the rural areas. And the people are changing too. Homesteaders are trying to wrest a living from the dry soil of the West, and entrepreneurs are inventing new things to make life easier at a dizzying pace.
Hewey's brother is one of those homesteaders, with a wife and a couple of half-grown boys, and when Hewey decides to come "home" after a couple of years away, he finds great changes afoot. His sister-in-law thinks it's time for Hewey to settle down, marry, prove up on some land, and give up his wandering cowboy ways. But although Hewey is tempted by the local schoolteacher, he defines freedom as the ability to walk away any time he likes and go somewhere else and do cowboy stuff.
Unfortunately, Hewey's footloose and fancy-free ways get him and his brother and nephews into some trouble - trouble that may end in them losing the land they've sweat blood and tears to turn into a home - trouble that can only be solved by Hewey buckling down and putting his hand to the plow in a way he's never had to do before.
Hewey is torn as he sees his freedom slipping away, but senses the call of civilizing influences as never before. What will he choose? The nomadic life of the good old boy, or the sweetness of love and home and family?
Hewey Calloway is a cowboy in a time that is just on the cusp of major changes. The old free range, where the cowboys drove cattle north from Mexico and Texas to the railheads in Kansas, is being fenced in by barbed wire. Automobiles and trains are beginning to replace the horse as the major mode of transportation, especially in the cities, but more slowly in the rural areas. And the people are changing too. Homesteaders are trying to wrest a living from the dry soil of the West, and entrepreneurs are inventing new things to make life easier at a dizzying pace.
Hewey's brother is one of those homesteaders, with a wife and a couple of half-grown boys, and when Hewey decides to come "home" after a couple of years away, he finds great changes afoot. His sister-in-law thinks it's time for Hewey to settle down, marry, prove up on some land, and give up his wandering cowboy ways. But although Hewey is tempted by the local schoolteacher, he defines freedom as the ability to walk away any time he likes and go somewhere else and do cowboy stuff.
Unfortunately, Hewey's footloose and fancy-free ways get him and his brother and nephews into some trouble - trouble that may end in them losing the land they've sweat blood and tears to turn into a home - trouble that can only be solved by Hewey buckling down and putting his hand to the plow in a way he's never had to do before.
Hewey is torn as he sees his freedom slipping away, but senses the call of civilizing influences as never before. What will he choose? The nomadic life of the good old boy, or the sweetness of love and home and family?
February 22, 2018
I haven't read nearly enough of Elmer Kelton's books yet, though I look forward to working on that deficit. He's billed as a Western author, but so far the books of his that I've read are really fantastic character studies about people who happen to live in the Old West, or just thereafter. Kelton doesn't go in for the shoot-em-ups. I can't recall a single shot being fired in The Good Old Boys. This is the story about a cowboy watching his way of life dying out, seeing his brother take to the plow, to see an older version of himself dying alone, and having to decide what he's going to do as he's faced with those changes.
The book has a lot of humor in it, but it's never over the top or out of place and never detracts from the story, but grows from it. Huey Calloway truly is a good old boy, one who'll work hard when he needs to, loves to play, and is always likable. He's the uncle every boy would want, and the kind of influence women don't want around their husbands or sons because he's got itchy feet and the ability to talk people into joining him.
The Good Old Boys is my favorite Kelton novel so far and one I highly recommend to anyone willing to read a story about an old cowboy looking at the world of west Texas in 1906.
The book has a lot of humor in it, but it's never over the top or out of place and never detracts from the story, but grows from it. Huey Calloway truly is a good old boy, one who'll work hard when he needs to, loves to play, and is always likable. He's the uncle every boy would want, and the kind of influence women don't want around their husbands or sons because he's got itchy feet and the ability to talk people into joining him.
The Good Old Boys is my favorite Kelton novel so far and one I highly recommend to anyone willing to read a story about an old cowboy looking at the world of west Texas in 1906.
December 26, 2018
Hewey is a cowboy without a home, always on the move and looking for an adventure. He gets caught up helping his brother save his farm while deciding whether or not he wants to settle down for good.
The buildup was really slow and the main tension of the story was pretty shaky. It's possible that I'm just not a fan of Westerns.
The buildup was really slow and the main tension of the story was pretty shaky. It's possible that I'm just not a fan of Westerns.
August 24, 2021
For me the writing style of Kelton does not measure up to Zane Grey or Louis Lamore.
June 8, 2013
Sometimes you read a book at just the right time for it to be most impactful. This is my time for this book.
When Hewey speaks to Eve about them still belonging to the old century, I can understand that now in a way I wouldn't have been able to if I had read this when it came out in 1978. It is much more personal, and much more powerful with the current change in one's surroundings, in one's country, in one's own self.
But if I had read it then, I would still have found this to be a great story, written by a great storyteller. Kelton was such a gifted writer. His stories, though fictional, have so much truth in them.
Elmer Kelton is becoming one of my favorite authors, with works that I know I will be returning to again and again.
When Hewey speaks to Eve about them still belonging to the old century, I can understand that now in a way I wouldn't have been able to if I had read this when it came out in 1978. It is much more personal, and much more powerful with the current change in one's surroundings, in one's country, in one's own self.
But if I had read it then, I would still have found this to be a great story, written by a great storyteller. Kelton was such a gifted writer. His stories, though fictional, have so much truth in them.
Elmer Kelton is becoming one of my favorite authors, with works that I know I will be returning to again and again.
August 28, 2014
My former father in law has impeccable taste in books. He persuaded me to try Elmer Kelton, an acknowledged master of the American western. THE GOOD OLD BOYS is Kelton's attempt at a humorous novel.
A footloose cowboy is forced to settle down for a season and act with unaccustomed responsibility to bring in the crops and save his brother's ranch in 1906 west Texas. I bet you can guess whether he manages to pull it off.
Part of the fun is the predictability and this book is fun. But it's not my thing. I probably won't be reading a western again for a while.
A footloose cowboy is forced to settle down for a season and act with unaccustomed responsibility to bring in the crops and save his brother's ranch in 1906 west Texas. I bet you can guess whether he manages to pull it off.
Part of the fun is the predictability and this book is fun. But it's not my thing. I probably won't be reading a western again for a while.
April 20, 2020
Hands down, one of the best novels of the waning-Old West. Kelton’s protagonist, Calloway, is the perfect character study of the cowboy. The themes are surprisingly contemporary. Kelton drives the drama in this story with rock-solid character development, wry humour, and geographic and cultural accuracy -avoiding the cheap tricks of violence, sex or profanity.
Well worth the read. This is on par with The Virginian by Wister, or novels by Eugene Manlove Rhodes: true literature of the Old West.
Well worth the read. This is on par with The Virginian by Wister, or novels by Eugene Manlove Rhodes: true literature of the Old West.
April 3, 2010
Not your cowboy movie West but the West that lies beneath and still shapes the culture and politics and economics of today's Texas. Also a damn readable story about a character who is larger than most life, but well within the boundaries of real people.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 120 reviews