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The Time It Never Rained | 
 enlarge | Author: Elmer Kelton
Publisher: Forge Books
Category: Book
List Price: $5.99
Buy New: $2.62
You Save: $3.37 (56%)
New (26) Used (15) Collectible (2) from $2.49
Avg. Customer Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 70639
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Edition: First Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 416
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.9
ISBN: 0812574516
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780812574517
ASIN: 0812574516
Publication Date: May 15, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: GREAT BUY!Brand New From US Distributor! WE ARE A 5 STAR SELLER with OVER 2,000,000 BOOKS SOLD!!! OVER ~ 520,000 FEEDBACKS ~ POSTED!!!
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Product Description
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, Charlie and his family struggle to make the ranch survive until the time it rains again-if it ever rains again.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
First timer but live there January 5, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is the first Kelton book I have read and the first fiction novel that I have read in decades. I felt like it was real to life and forgot it was fiction. I live there-West Texas, Panhandle. Surely there is a sequel. He left it open to finish out the lives of the major people involved, in at least one more book but ended this one as he should.
A Lot More Than A Western! July 31, 2005
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
Elmer Kelton was rightfully honored with a number of awards for this thoughtful piece of work originally published in 1973. While it is about ranchers trying to survive in one of those long droughts that seem to come more and more frequent to the West and particularly the Southwest it is much more than a story of survival. The nearest community in the book is called Rio Seco and while it only exists in our mind's eye Kelton describes it well enough that it could be one of thousands such communities scattered across Texas and the West. What came to my mind as he described it is the movie from a number of years ago called, "The Last Picture Show". The book is a beautiful study of evolving and conflicting cultures on so many levels. Kelton does a fine job of laying out the past and showing the future of changes between Angelo and Hispanic to include the continuing question of undocumented immigrants. Another is the "old school" way of looking at things rather than the new way. One of the focal points of the book is the role that government aid plays in changing groups such as ranchers forever. The "hero" (and I'm sure he never considered himself a hero of any kind) of the book, Charlie Flagg refuses the aid and thereby creates tension for himself and others around him. What's amazing, and something to which I consider an honor, is that I was reared in a time and community to have known men just like Charlie Flagg. This book has been re-published several times and I can understand why. Really much of what you read in "The Time It Never Rained" is timeless while other parts provide a beautiful look to the middle of the last century in Texas. While it's considered a western it's far from a "shoot'em up". Other of his books go there but that's for another review.
The Time It Never Rained March 20, 2005
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Being a Texan in Texas during the drought Elmer Kelton describes in The Time It Never Rained, he seems to write about it first hand. I remember the deluge that ended the drought, and it was the experience I remember. I worked at the San Angelo Standard-Times while Mr. Kelton did, and his day to day newspaper work was a preview to his books to come. He has West Texas nailed down to a T, and I love all his books. But this one especially strikes home.
Drought, civilization and compromise June 9, 2004
14 out of 14 found this review helpful
This book is unlike any of Kelton's other works. The time setting is the 1950s and the seven-year drought we experienced during those years. The plot/theme is the end of the era of independence and freedom among cow men ... the time when they told themselves the drought forced them to sell themselves to the government to receive hay in return for their souls and their pasts.I think of this book as a companion read to Abbey's, Brave Cowboy and McMurtry's, Hud (the book). All three writers were capturing a time and an attitude representing an end of an era when ranchers continued to curse the government out of habit while accepting welfare money as gracefully as the city poor they despised for doing so. Kelton's book is as good as the other two, maybe better.
One of our countries best books December 28, 1999
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Great book! Kelton shows us Charlie Flagg's country. You'll like it
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