Book Summary and Reviews of The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton

The Time It Never Rained

by Elmer Kelton

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  • Published:
  • Jan 1973, 373 pages
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Book Summary

To the ranchers and farmers of 1950s Texas, man's biggest enemy is one he can't control.

With their entire livelihood pegged on the chance of a wet year or a dry year, drought has the ability to crush their whole enterprise, to determine who stands and who falls, and to take food out of the mouths of the workers and their families. To Charlie Flagg, an honest, decent, and cantankerous rancher, the drought of the early 1950s is a foe that he must fight on his own grounds. Refusing the questionable "help" of federal aid programs, Chalie and his family struggle to make the ranch survive until the time it rains again - if it ever rains again.

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This information about The Time It Never Rained was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

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Author Information

Elmer Kelton

Elmer Kelton (1926-2009) was the seven-time Spur Award-winning author of more than forty novels, and the recipient of the Owen Wister Lifetime Achievement award. He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. Among his awards have been seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. 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 forty-two years, and served in the infantry in World War II. He passed away in 2009.

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