He Created a New Kind of Western

Kelton wound up writing something almost as ambitious: a book that may go down as the Great Texas Novel. When Kelton died in August at the age of 83, many of the obituaries cited "The Time It Never Rained" as his finest achievement. The story of rancher Charlie Flagg and his struggles during a terrible drought in the 1950s is not just another western. It's a piece of Western lit. At home, he was trying to fashion a new kind of western. It wasn't set among the gunslingers of the 19th century but during the very period he was investigating as a journalist. His editor didn't care for the first draft, so Kelton rewrote it. The second draft didn't cut it, either. Kelton tucked away the manuscript and went back to the kinds of westerns he could sell. Ranchers often have to wait out dry spells, and that's what Kelton did with his drought novel. Time passed. Kelton thought he improved at the craft of writing. In the early 1970s, he started his old story from scratch. It was published in 1973 as "The Time It Never Rained." Readers recognized it as a classic. It won the Spur Award for best novel, which for authors of westerns is the equivalent of a Pulitzer. The tale centers on Charlie Flagg, a stubborn rancher who battles the unyielding drought. He also resists the government's relief programs with a determination that his friends find both admirable and strange. What emerges is the portrait of a rugged libertarian: "I just want to live by my own lights and be left the hell alone," says Flagg. The federal aid turns out to have bad consequences. It fuels inflation, turns neighbor against neighbor, and chips away at bedrock freedoms. Each time a rancher surrenders a piece of his independence, says Flagg, "he's given up a little of his self-respect, a little of the pride he used to have in takin' care of himself by himself."...read more