The Smiling Country
A Hewey Calloway Novel
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4.7 • 23 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"The Smiling Country is about a footloose puncher who finds out the hard way that cowboys don't remain young forever and that the inevitable wear and tear of a rugged life forces changes and compromises on the willing and unwilling alike."— Elmer Kelton
Hewey Calloway did not know how old he was without stopping to figure, and that distracted his attention from matters of real importance.
Elmer Kelton introduced Texas cowboy Hewey Calloway, one of the most beloved characters in Western fiction, almost thirty years ago in The Good Old Boys. The novel was transformed into a memorable 1995 TV film starring Tommy Lee Jones and Sissy Spacek.
Hewey returns in The Smiling Country. It is 1910 and his freewheeling life is coming to an end—the fences, trucks, and automobiles he hates are creeping in even to remote Alpine, in the "smiling country" of West Texas. When he is badly injured trying to break a renegade horse, Hewey sees the loneliness that awaits him, and regrets his decision to run away from the only woman he has ever loved, the schoolteacher Spring Renfro.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
After more than 40 novels full of "five foot eight and nervous" western heroes, Kelton brings back endearing Hewey Calloway, the restless, middle-aged cowboy of The Good Old Boys. But now it's 1910 in West Texas, and the freewheeling cowboy life Hewey loves has nearly vanished. He may insist that automobiles are a fad, but he has a harder time shrugging off his own advancing age or the responsibilities that come with it. So when his young nephew, Tommy, shows up at the J Bar ranch looking for work, Hewey only reluctantly agrees to show him the tricks of the cow-punching trade. Meanwhile, regrets over his lost love, schoolmarm Spring Renfro, haunt Hewey until a bad bronc-riding accident and a horsetrading swindle leave him half-crippled and bitter. His misfortune shows him just how wrong he can be about human nature, especially his own. As usual, Kelton's characters are credible, quirky and warm, just good Texas folk struggling to cope with a world that threatens to pass them by.
