Book Review

One Man

4 Comments / Book Review, Freedom, Respect, Stories / By

Stephen Talty’s book, Agent Garbo (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2012), tells a spectacular story of one man’s enormous contribution to the Allied victory in World War 2. Viewed through the lens of today, this story is unbelievable.

Here’s the short version.

In 1941 Juan Pujol Garcia was a 28-year-old chicken farmer in Barcelona. Unalterably opposed to Hitler and the Nazis, he walked into the British embassy in Madrid and asked for a job as a spy. Of course they rejected him. So he went to the Americans. They were not impressed with him either.

Then Pujol asked the enemy for a spy job!

After hearing his emotional and bombastic profession of love for Hitler, the Germans accepted him…if he would relocate to England. Instead, he moved to Portugal and convinced the Germans that he was writing reports from England. When they told him to hire some agents, he created a fictitious network of 27 spies.

At that time, British Intelligence was an oxymoron (they were seriously considering staging the Second Coming of Christ as a means of defeating the Germans). But they soon had enough intelligence to realize that a very proficient Nazi spy was undermining the Allies. Finally, Pujol had gained the respect of British Intelligence!

When he went back to them, they accepted him as a double agent and code-named him “Garbo,” for he was surely the best actor in the world. He was theatrical, emotional, daring, and brilliant. And maybe nuts.

Agent Garbo’s greatest role was his support of D-Day. To create the illusion of an Allied strike 200 miles from the real one, he contrived a completely fabricated million-man army, led by General Patton. Under Pujol’s direction, the British built thousands of wood or inflatable decoys of tanks, boats, airplanes, hospitals, and other wartime necessities. Patton, like an actor, even made a speech in his fictional role.

The Germans bought it. Furthermore, Pujol had the audacity to convince the Germans that the real D-Day invasion was a scam. Even after D-Day! Although they assigned an army to Normandy, they kept a far larger force at the fake site. Clearly, without Pujol’s masterful deceit, D-Day would have cost thousands more lives than it did.

It is one of the most astonishing stories I’ve ever read.

How was it even possible that a man who had no training as a spy and failed at everything else in life became an essential voice to, both, Hitler and Churchill? He, a double agent, is the only spy to be honored by both Germany and England.

So many contributed to the success of D-Day. But Juan Pujol Garcia probably achieved more than any other individual.

Beyond my high recommendation of the book, Agent Garbo really challenged me. Could one person achieve such bold and sweeping things today? I don’t know. But it’s an important question.

It seems that today we live inside a screaming wind tunnel that blows everything into conformity with acceptable patterns. As a result, the distinctives of individuals are contoured into the most “aerodynamic” uniformity possible.

Progress seems to take as much as it gives. I love living in this age; I would not want to live in any other time or place. But it does seem that we’ve lost our view, and our honor of, grand individuals. We all seem to identify with our group.

That is why Agent Garbo is such a mesmerizing artifact. It gives the reader a clear view of a time when individuals sure seemed to matter more than they do today.

Perhaps the leveling of structures in our time will release individuals to achieve great things again.

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The Authentic Swing

Leave a Comment / Book Review, Contemplation, God, Golf, Stories, Writing / By

Steven Pressfield (The Legend of Bagger Vance, The War of Art) just published a new book; The Authentic Swing (Black Irish Entertainment, 2013) examines the twin tracks of golf and writing.

Here’s the deal: golf and writing (and probably every other artistic expression) come from the same place – our unique design by God. They are just part of who we are. Just as my eyes are green and I cannot change that, so are my golf swing and my writing. God gave them. They are authentic, part of the bundle called Ed Chinn. I can work on improving both, but I can’t change the original design.

Pressfield’s most profound insight is the very simple line, “The golf swing is not learned, it is remembered.” We get in trouble when we try to become something or someone else.

He also writes, “The philosophy that underlies…the Authentic Swing contradicts the Western ideal of education, training, and evolution. It rejects the axiom that ‘you can be anything you want to be.’ …we can only be who we already are.”

Pressfield really camps out in that mysterious realm of art and creativity. To write or sing or act or sculpt or dance is to live in the intersection of flesh and spirit, heaven and earth. The biggest part of the art seems to come from another realm. The writer is a scribe. That’s why I’ve never been able to really identify with anything I’ve written.

It may have passed through me, but it certainly did not originate in me.

My song-writing friend Morris Chapman said that being a songwriter is much like being an oil refinery. God makes the “oil;” Morris is just a place where it gets boiled, distilled, etc. Nothing possessive (or glamorous) about that.

Finally, Pressfield writes, “…you think you’re crafting a story, but in fact the story is crafting you. The story is like a dream, in that it bubbles up from some deep internal source. The story is wiser than you…it is trying to tell you something about yourself. That’s why it hooks you…You think that your story is private, unique, idiosyncratic. You believe that no one will be interested in it but you. But the more deeply you enter into your story, the more you perceive its universality. The story is never about what you think it is. It’s never about someone. It’s always about everyone.”

He also knows what all writers know: “You have not chosen the story. The story has chosen you.” That is so wise. When I read this (and other lines) I found myself thinking…Pressfield, you are not far from the Kingdom of God. (Mark 12:34)

This very short and readable book also serves up very nice insights on caddies, why golf is so hard and harassing, movie making in general and the making of The Legend of Bagger Vance in particular.

If you write or golf, The Authentic Swing will find traction in your heart. If you pay attention and take notes during your walk through the earth, you may be startled to hear this book whisper your name.

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The Little Way of Ruthie Leming

3 Comments / Appreciation, Book Review, Culture, death, legacy / By

The true story Rod Dreher tells in The Little Way of Ruthie Leming (Grand Central, 2013) is simple and straight. And we know the end from the beginning. Rod and his little sister Ruth grow up in a small town in Louisiana. He cannot wait to leave the place. He wants the “big” – city, money, fame. She chooses the local, the little, and the quiet.

At forty, she is stricken with a very aggressive cancer. Rod watches the community come around his little sister. Her quiet and steady sowing – her “faithfulness in small things” – turns into a great harvest of kindness and generosity. She dies. Rod not only writes a book honoring his sister and her choice of the “little way,” he realizes he can and must find that way.

It has been said that a great book will read us more than we read it. This is that kind of book; at least it was for me. I too grew up in a small town. And I could not wait to leave Pratt, Kansas. My brother Vernon stayed. Except for an excursion through the US Army and Viet Nam, and postwar ranching jobs in Nebraska and Colorado, Vernon has been a supporting column for family and community all his life.

So this very real, organic, and probing book was a mirror for me. I saw myself in the intricate layers of father-son relationships, the shades of familial and community acceptance (and rejection), and the nuances of sibling relationships.

But, the real beauty and power of The Little Way…is the compelling twin portraits of Ruthie and St. Francisville, Louisiana. Ruthie was a very full-spirited southern woman. She always manifested a serious, even sacrificial, approach to life. But she also dropped her bra at a Hank Williams Jr. concert, swung it like a lasso, then released it to soar onto the stage (Hank draped it from the neck of his guitar).

In time, Ruthie settled. She became a teacher; “Listen, sweet baby, you can do this,” she pleads with a student. She loved her parents, her husband and daughters, her students, cooking and St. Francisville. She was a true community spark plug. Everyone in town knew and loved her. Ruthie comes right off the pages in full throbbing color.

When Ruthie got sick, the town folded around her like a right hand would grab and hold injured fingers on the left hand. This is one of the most vivid portrayals of community you will ever read.

For example, the town came together for a “Leming-Aid” concert in the park.  Out of 1700 residents, a thousand people came, and they gave $43,000! People were buying ice cream cones with hundred dollar bills.

When Ruthie hit a very bad place, a text message called her daughter Hannah out of class at LSU. Hannah quickly asked a classmate to drive her home (30 miles) in her Jeep. He drove so fast that he blew the radiator. Almost immediately a couple picked them up and drove them straight to the hospital. That night, as the family returned from the hospital, their house had been cleaned, the tables and counters piled high with food, and the Jeep was sitting in the driveway. The radiator had been repaired.

True to the rhythms of community, her open casket sat on the same spot in the church “where she and Mike had stood years earlier and promised to be together until death.”

Ruthie was often barefooted; it was something of a signature. When the pallbearers stepped to the rear of the funeral coach to receive her casket, they were all barefoot, with their suit pants rolled high over their ankles. They carried her “to her grave with the wet green grass of Starhill [Cemetery] between their toes.” When Ruthie’s daughters saw that, they removed their shoes too.

After the funeral, Rod and his family knew – and told some friends –they were returning to St. Francisville. In the little way of small towns, immediately someone told him about a house. He looked at it and took it.

The house was located on Fidelity Street.

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Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes

4 Comments / Book Review, Culture, God / By

All of us are captives of culture. And most of us think that he, she, or they certainly are, but that I am not.

Each of us tend to see our own roots going way past the loam where culture grows, way on down into the bedrock of God or “the truth.” But, in fact, we all draw most of our sustenance from the topsoil of our own codes, traditions, rituals, language, etc. Naturally and inevitably we pull the ancient and living Bible into service to our own culture and selfishness.

That is basically the idea behind Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien (IVP, 2012).

Western culture has specific notions about ethnicity, individuals, groups, law, honor, privacy, rules, time, and virtue and vice. And we continually impose those notions on the Bible and faith. For example, the authors write, “The technical term for behaviors like smoking, drinking and cussing is mores…Webster’s Dictionary defines mores as ‘folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a group.'” Yet “Christians are tempted to believe our mores originate from the Bible.”

I found Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes to be very helpful in identifying the specifics behind those “Western Eyes.” For example:

  • Language. “English is a subject-verb language; it is actor- and action-oriented. We prefer sentences with a clear subject and a clear predicate, and we like it best when the verb is in the active voice. It is difficult to construct a meaningful sentence in English without a subject. Even when we describe weather (‘It is raining’), we supply a subject (‘it’). Other languages can manage without a subject…in Indonesia, one can say, ‘Exists rain.'”
  • Sex. Western societies tend to let sex drive relationships. We allow, even encourage, boys and girls to get together…alone…in the dark…with alcohol! We call it “dating.” But more communal cultures see that as irresponsible parenting. As one Indonesian father said, “Wow, you Americans are amazing. If Indonesian kids did that, someone would get pregnant.” He goes on, “For Indonesians, it seems unfair to leave an individual in a situation in which his or her only real protection is willpower.” Is it possible that we in the West are confused about sex?
  • Time. Westerners are schedule-driven. But most people of the Bible (and other times and places) were/are relationship-based. We set times for a meeting to begin. But for non-Westerners, a meeting begins “when everyone who needs to be there has arrived.” We impose our time and schedule as virtues on our reading of the Bible.

One of the great and deep joys of this book is how they blow the dust and smoke away from some biblical passages. For example, they show how Western Christians read the story of David and Bathsheba through issues like personal guilt and populism. We completely miss that David was a king. In fact, Uriah failed to treat David with the honor due him. So David had him killed and probably never thought another thing about it. The authors sure persuaded me that “David was not tortured by a guilty conscience.”

However, this is really a story of a king and The King. Only when God confronted David, did the lesser king break! Oh, I loved that view.

They also show how the Apostle Paul had to navigate a patronage system when he raised money.

But the real payload and joy of the book, for me, is in the conflicting views of rules vs. relationships. “In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time.” But, in the Bible, “rules applied except when they didn’t.” What a lovely line!

One of the authors tells of a time when he was a speaker at a Baptist “pastor’s conference” in Indonesia. He knew that the bylaws of the denomination permitted only men to serve as pastors. But he saw women in the audience. When he mentioned it to his host, he man just nodded. So, the author said, “But your laws say pastors must be male.” And his host calmly replied, “Yes, and most of them are.”

He then wondered about the Apostle Paul… “Paul states, ‘I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet’ (1 Tim 2:12). ‘But what about Priscilla and Junia?’ we might ask Paul. ‘They taught in church. You said women must keep silent.'”

“Perhaps Paul would answer, ‘Yes. And most of them do.'”

If you want a book to challenge your traditions and attitudes (perhaps even jerk you out of them), I highly recommend Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes.  

NOTE: The authors bring very diverse and many international perspectives into play. For some reason, the Indonesian examples spoke more to me. That’s why I used several in this review.

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The Righteous Mind

9 Comments / Book Review, Culture, God, Politics / By

Why and how do people arrive at certain political and religious perspectives?

That question drives The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion (Pantheon Books, 2012). Author Jonathan Haidt is a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia. Moral psychology is his field.

Haidt cracks the door on his thesis with this simple statement: “We humans all have the same five taste receptors, but we don’t all like the same foods.” Yes, of course, from the very same sensory equipment, we live in a dazzling diversity of foods, flavors, cooking methods, serving pieces, etc.

The same kind of matrix frames our “moral judgments.” Through exhaustive research, Haidt identified six “foundations of morality.” These six “taste receptors” form the basis of our moral behavior. We all have the same ones; from them we develop our own political and religious “taste” preferences (the two words of each foundation represents a scale from the principle to its antithesis).

  • Care/harm
  • Liberty/oppression
  • Fairness/cheating
  • Loyalty/betrayal
  • Authority/subversion
  • Sanctity/degradation

 

What This Means for Politics and Religion

Author Haidt, a self-described “liberal Democrat,” was invited to address a Democratic Party gathering following the 2004 election. His topic: “Republicans Understand Moral Psychology; Democrat’s Don’t.” In fact, he says that liberals largely reject half of the six foundations of morality: loyalty, authority, and sanctity. Strangely, according to Haidt, “very conservative” people value all six equally.

From that, he writes about his excitement about Barack Obama, as “a liberal who understood conservative arguments about the need for order and… tradition.” But after a few months, Haidt became worried. He saw Obama working from only two of the foundations, care and fairness.

Of conservatives, Haidt writes, “…their broader moral matrix allows them to detect threats to moral capital that liberals cannot perceive…they fight back ferociously when they believe that change will damage the institutions and traditions that provide our moral exoskeletons (such as the family). Preserving those institutions and traditions is their most sacred value.

Haidt, an atheist, devotes much space to “the hive” – that mysterious dimension where humans lose themselves in something larger and transcendent. He challenges liberals on their disregard of the sanctity foundation. For example, he writes that liberals have difficulty understanding the conservative revulsion about a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist’s urine or elephant dung wiped across an image of the Virgin Mary.

So, helpfully, he asks if liberals would understand the sanctity better if Jesus and Mary were exchanged for Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela?

Can We Disagree More Constructively?

As stated earlier, we all have wildly differing tastes in food. Wouldn’t we think it strange to have talk radio and cable news programming built around demonizing those who prefer Thai food or Riesling wines? Can you imagine a book built around a thesis that to love cheeseburgers is to be a traitor?

We all live in a matrix of six moral judgments. Just as our common taste receptors allow people to run to a multitude of food choices, so our placement within the moral foundations allows us to try and adapt various political and religious tastes. Anybody have a problem with that?

Yes, they do. But why?

So much of the conflict is rooted in genetics. Haidt: “After analyzing the DNA of 13,000 Australians, scientists recently found several genes that differed between liberals and conservatives. Most of them related to neurotransmitter functioning, particularly glutamate and serotonin, both of which are involved in the brain’s response to threat and fear…conservatives react more strongly than liberals to signs of danger…liberals have less need for order, structure, and closure.”

It seems to me that Haidt has taken an enormous first step in trying to help everyone see the whole spectrum more clearly and objectively. As a liberal and an atheist, he vigorously challenges his fellow liberals and atheists in their languid and predictable thinking about political conservatism and religion.

For example, he writes about moral capital (the resources that “enable a community to suppress selfishness and make cooperation possible”) and social capital, “the social ties among individuals and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from those ties.” He sees both as blind spots for the left.

Haidt furthermore writes that this “is the reason I believe that liberalism – which has done so much to bring about freedom and equal opportunity – is not sufficient as a governing philosophy. It tends to overreach, change too many things too quickly, and reduce the stock of moral capital…”

To my surprise, Haidt never does engage much of a critique of conservatism (or conservatives). He wants to see more respect, civility, and objectivity in our public discourse, and he models it!

The Righteous Mind is, like it’s author, generous and noble.

He concludes: “Morality binds and blinds. It binds us into ideological teams that fight each other as though the fate of the world depended on our side winning each battle. It blinds us to the fact that each team is comprised of good people who have something important to say.”

Precisely.

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Falling Upward

3 Comments / Book Review, change, Contemplation, death, God / By

Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall, But those who wait on the LORD Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,They shall run and not be weary,They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40: 30-31 (NKJV)

Father Richard Rohr’s new book, Falling Upward (Jossey-Bass, 2011), examines the two stages of life. He calls them “first half” and “second half,” although they don’t conform to that bisected organization. As we all know, many people never leave the first half.

According to Father Rohr, the first half of life is consumed with nailing down our “personal (or superior) identify, creating various boundary markers…, seeking security, and perhaps linking to what seem like significant people or projects.”

The second stage is the quiet and peaceful place beyond strength, speed, volume, reputation, self-assurance, and ME. It is the place of finally letting go of falseness and finding the freedom to fall. When we do, we find that we fall up!

Although Rohr does not quote Isaiah 40:30-31, for me that famous passage mirrors the message of Falling Upward. In the second stage, we find our true strength in waiting on the Lord. To “renew strength” is to “exchange strength:”ours for His.

I must admit that the first five chapters struck me as almost insufferable; it was like listening to hours of sitar music while drunk-gazing at a dripping faucet.

But, then on page 77 of the chapter, Necessary Suffering, Rohr wrote, “Creation itself, the natural world, already ‘believes’ the Gospel, and lives the pattern of death and resurrection…Most of nature seems to totally accept major loss, gross inefficiency, mass extinctions, and short life spans as the price of it all.”

He had me at “creation believes the gospel.”

Then, Rohr becomes like a fine old viola in the final 40 pages of the book. So rich and vibrant and melodic. At 65, I hear, taste, touch, see, and sniff most of life in the deeper register. In those forty pages, Rohr spoke straight to my heart.

Consider a few of his observations about the second half. I resonate so deeply with every line:

  • “…it is good just to be a part of the general dance. We do not have to stand out, make defining moves, or be better than anyone else on the dance floor. Life is more participatory than assertive, and there is no need for strong or further self-definition.”
  • “God is no longer small, punitive, or tribal. They once worshipped their raft; now they love the shore where it has taken them. They once defended signposts; now they have arrived where the signs pointed.”
  • “…we do not have strong and final opinions about everything, every event, or most people, as much as we allow things and people to delight us, sadden us, and truly influence us. We no longer need to change or adjust other people to be happy ourselves.”
  • “…your self-image is nothing more than just that, and not worth protecting, promoting, or denying.”
  • “…most of us have to hit some kind of bottom before we even start the real spiritual journey. Up to that point, it is mostly religion.”
  • “Today, I often find this receptive soil more outside of churches than within, many of which have lost that necessary ‘beginner’s mind’ both as groups and as individuals.”

And, this, near the end, serves as a fine summary of the book:

“Most of us tend to think of the second half of life as largely about getting old, dealing with health issues, and letting go of physical life, but the whole thesis of this book is exactly the opposite. What looks like falling can largely be experienced as falling upward and onward, into a broader and deeper world, where the soul has found its fullness, is finally connected to the whole, and lives inside the Big Picture.”

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Unbroken

1 Comment / Book Review / By

I can certainly see why author Laura Hillenbrand (Seabiscuit) was drawn to the story of Louis Zamperini.

Her Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is so debilitating that she rarely leaves her home in Washington, DC.  And the Zamparini story is a profound, thrilling, heartbreaking, emotional, inspiring, cannot-quit-reading examination of human endurance.  So, Hillenbrand’s book about him, Unbroken (Random House, 2010), throws the human bundle of body, soul, and spirit into a veritable taffey-pulling machine.

She takes us into a ravishing tour of what humans can achieve, inflict, and endure.  I think an author who has great health could not have written this knowing gaze into the physical and mental and spiritual dimensions.

This is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Here’s the basic story:

Louis Zamperini, born in 1917, grew up in Torrance, California as an incorrigible thief, hoodlum, and hobo.  Really tough kid. Fearless. But, in High School, all of his delinquent ways turned into world class athletic skill on the track.  He became one of the fastest runners in the world.  After running very impressively in the 1936 Olympics (and meeting Hitler), he joined the Army Air Force in September, 1941.

In May of 1943, Second Lieutenant Louie Zamperini was a bombardier on a B-24 which crashed into Pacific.  That crash also plunges the reader into an unimaginable, harrowing and astonishing 27-month World War 2 adventure — floating 2,000 miles in a raft, spending two years in the demonic brutality of POW camps, navigating the shoals of return to normal civilization life, and incredible redemption.

Along the way, Hillenbrand takes her readers to scenic overviews of kindness and cruelty, the fierce visage of terrorism, the shredding of human dignity, marriage, alcoholism, fear, faith, and forgiveness.

Louis Zamperini is a true and full hero.  You want to see a real hero and consider the mystery of how they appear in history?  This book is the best examination of that I’ve ever read.  Incredibly, Zamperini is, of this writing, still very much alive at 93!  On his 81st birthday, he ran one leg of the Olympic torch relay in Japan.  Two weeks ago, he threw out the first pitch of the Red Sox-Cubs game at Fenway Park in Boston.

But Unbroken is full of heroes and heroism.  You cannot read this against the backdrop of a US Congressman sending photos of his own crotch to young women without wondering what the hell happened to character, integrity, and heroism.

As a writer, Hillenbrand fully matches Zamperini.  In addition to her own physical affliction, she has the mature and sensitive eye of a novelist.  The reader feels every scene.  You will not get through the book without gasps, groans, full laughter, tears, and encounters with transcendent reality.   Trust me: Unbroken‘s 406 pages will not let you eat, sleep, or work.

Interesting sidebar: this book about military men contains very little bad language.  My dad, also a World War 2 veteran, told me he never heard the degrading language then that became commonplace in later times.  How refreshing to read a book that is faithful to a subject and a time.

 

 

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Same Kind of Different as Me

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Ron Hall and Denver Moore, the co-authors of “Same Kind of Different as Me” (Thomas Nelson, 2006) are not writers. In fact, Moore cannot even read.

But, these guys have somehow produced one riveting book (yes, I know a ghostwriter pulled it all together). This is a true story and one you’ve not read before. And, let me tell you, it will grab you by the throat and pull sounds from your windpipe which you have possibly not heard before. More than once, I inhaled or cried out so suddenly that I startled my cats and other coffee drinkers at Starbucks (separate situations; I don’t take my cats to Starbucks).

Trust me; it is best to read this book alone.

“Same Kind of Different as Me” starts in vastly different places: a sharecroppers brutal world (almost impossible to believe this was 20th century America) and the very elite — caviar and corporate jets — universe of an international art dealer. Then, the threads are pulled together in Fort Worth.

This is a “Christian” book, but it is not stereotypical at all. It bores into some very different and vividly-drawn people and does so very honestly. The large-canvas story is told in several incredible narratives of wealth, poverty, adultery, illness, hospitalization, and being black in America. Along the way, it delivers powerhouse insight on loss, grace, living and dying, the veil between this life and the next, seeing with new eyes, and the (most riveting for me) the creature’s eternal yearning.

Through it all, you will find yourself viewing homeless and “dangerous” types differently than ever before. In fact, that is part of the message. We’re all different and we’re all the same: homeless, noble, peace-loving, dangerous, rich and poor, lost and found. Our culture has created something of an artificial chasm between us. It magnifies our differences and ignores our similarities. But, in fact, we’re all the same kind of different.

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The Time it Never Rained

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We all know that one of the most compelling themes in literature revolves around human struggles with the planet. Many carve out their lives in the extremes of heat and cold, the deadly swirling blasts of winds and water, and through the violent quaking of the earth’s surface. Naturally, the earth itself is a great (and inevitable) canvas for artists.

Texas novelist, Elmer Kelton, unfurled one part of that canvas — the enormous expanse of the 1950s West Texas drought — for his 1973 novel, “The Time it Never Rained.”

I read this sprawling and gripping novel of West Texas early in the morning, during lunch breaks, in the mid-afternoon, in the evening, and anytime I woke up during the night. It sunk it’s hooks into my mind and would not let go till I finished the last page.

Charlie Flagg is a salt-of-the-earth, overweight, fifty-plus, good guy rancher near the fictional town of Rio Seco, Texas. Part of Kelton’s mastery is that he lets the story unspool in the easy rhythms of agrarian life. We slowly get to know Charlie, his family (including the Hispanic family living on his place), his neighbors, banker, waitress, and others in his community… people gnarled by the meteorological and economic realities of West Texas.

But, this is far more than a story about surviving drought. Kelton attains an operatic power in this saga of land, family, community, traditions, and the new (1950s) intrusions of government and banking regulations. “The Time it Never Rained” is a “perfect storm” of life-crushing forces.

Strangely, this 1973 novel about events 20 years earlier carries a potent message for anyone living into the 21st century: government is not your friend! Bureaucracy is not merely incompetent and bungling; it is vicious and deadly. The reader feels caught and utterly helpless to stop the inevitable destruction of ranches and businesses trapped in the government’s juggernaut. At one point, you can see a suicide coming and it breaks your heart. Kelton said every story in this novel is true.

In “The Time it Never Rained,” we see a thriving culture of free, wind-in-your-face, religious, familial, self-reliance. And, we also see the sinister forces which tried (and still try) to kill it. I almost never use a highlighter in a novel. But, I used up two highlighters on this one.

This novel got under my skin. You can smell the horses and their saddles, feel the dry dirt running through your fingers, see the bleached landscape, and hear the bleating of dying lambs.

“The Time it Never Rained” carries a rare emotional power.

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