Elmer Kelton Country: The Short Nonfiction of a Texas Novelist

Some who treasure Elmer Kelton's novels - Time It Never Rained, The Good Old Boys, Slaughter and over thirty other titles - may not realize that he led another professional life as a livestock journalist. For forty-two years, he wrote fiction by night and traveled West Texas by day to report on livestock auctions, range conditions, and rodeo results. To those who know him as the retired associate editor of Livestock Weekly, his novels are less important than his knowledge of ranching. This nonfiction collection, assembled with Kelton's enthusiastic cooperation, shows the connection between his separate careers. Here are the causes that interest him and the themes that run through his fiction - environmental issues, agricultural developments, the history of West Texas and its ranching lands, the sport of rodeo, the craft of writing. Here, too, are the profiles and reminiscences of ranching people who give him ideas - and character hints - for his fiction, the bits of history that spark new novels.