Stand Proud (1984) - Elmer Kelton

 I first read Elmer Kelton’s Stand Proud sometime back in the eighties,  and that was plenty long enough ago for this re-read to feel like I was reading it for the very first time. I remembered almost no details concerning the book’s plot, and had only a general memory of how much I enjoyed the story the first time around. It turns out that Stand Proud explores a theme that Larry McMurtry and quite a few other writers of westerns have explored in their own fiction over the years: what happens to violent men who outlive their usefulness to society once times have changed for the better. 

Frank Claymore is one of those men.

During the Civil War, Frank had been one of the young militia men who stayed home to protect Texas settlers from the deadly raids of the Comanche Indians who were still not willing to cede Texas to the newcomers. The situation was so desperate that the Confederacy had to stop conscripting men from that part of the state so that the small farms and ranches could survive the war years. Twenty-two-year-old Frank was one of those small ranchers himself, but all able-bodied men were required to put time in with the militia - and he put in more than most.

Frank came out of the war years with three things: a wound that would plague him the rest of his life, the location of a remote grassland valley that he would claim for himself, and a mortal enemy and competitor for everything he held dearest. 

And now, over 40 years later, Frank sits in a courtroom to be judged by a jury composed of small ranch owners who resent him and all he has claimed for himself. He is accused of murder, but is still determined to play by his own rules, damn the consequences. And it’s not looking good for him.

Each chapter of Stand Proud opens on a day of Frank’s trial, followed by a longer section from Frank’s past. This allows the reader to compare the young Frank Claymore to the elderly version, and to learn the truth, in detail, about what is being testified to in the courtroom. This construction works remarkably well to explain what kind of man Frank is and why someone as respected as he once was could find himself in a mess like this one so near the end of his life. 

Stand Proud is nothing like the stereotypical pulp fiction western readers unfamiliar with the genre too often think of when they think “western” novel. This is a character-driven story in which relationships and longtime grudges drive all the action, a story where disagreements are more likely to be settled by fists rather than by guns. Kelton’s later novels, such as The Time It Never Rained, The Day the Cowboy’s Quit, and The Good Old Boys brought ever more realism to his stories about the cowboying life and its relationship to an ever-changing Texas landscape. The Western Writers of America once went so far as to proclaim Kelton “the greatest Western writer of all time.” I might not go quite that far in my praise of the man, but I will tell you that his fiction has entertained me for a long, long time. And that I appreciate him. 

An American Outlaw (2013) - John Stonehouse

 An American Outlaw is the first book in John Stonehouse’s popular series featuring US Marshal John Whicher. There are now eight books in the series, including one novella, with the latest novel Wolves of the Evening, having just been published in March 2026. This is my first exposure to the series so I don’t know how typical An American Outlaw is to the other seven books, but I’ve been told that Stonehouse writes them as standalone stories that can be read in any order the reader prefers. 

In this first one, Gulf War veteran Gilman James (a distant relative of the famous outlaw Jesse James) comes home to find that two of his childhood buddies never recovered from the mental and emotional wounds they suffered in the same war. They are broken men, and James wants to help them. But that takes money, lots of it, because no one else seems much willing to give these men the kind of help they have every right to expect from a grateful nation. 

James is a man with few prospects of his own, but he will do whatever it takes to get his hands on however much money it takes to help his friends put their lives back together. The icing on the cake is that he plans to steal all of that money from the very people who have directly made their lives so much worse than they should be. James and his two buddies start a series of armed robberies in Lafayette, Louisiana that all falls apart in a little West Texas bank, and now US Marshal John Whicher, along with numerous other law enforcement officers, is determined to stop the men before they can cross the Mexican border. 

Whicher is a veteran investigator who tries to stay one jump ahead of whomever he’s chasing by getting inside their heads deeply enough to anticipate their next move. That skill works well for him but sometimes, as in this case, Whicher can become too empathetic for his own good. And that’s dangerous.

An American Outlaw is a shoot-em-up manhunt story in which the action seldom slows down. Along the way, though, Stonehouse effectively visits the themes of war’s toll on those who do the actual fighting, loyalty, and the gray areas between guilt and innocence. John Stonehouse gives his readers a lot to think about between the gunshots.

What I’m Reading This Week (4/30/26)

 I finished two of the five books I was reading last week (reviews to come eventually - I hope), and I made decent progress on two of the others. I finished my re-read of Elmer Kelton’s Texas novel, Stand Proud, along with listening to the rest of An American Outlaw, the John Stonehouse audiobook I started during my recent day trip to Beaumont. The Kelton book, I’m relieved to report held up pretty well, so now I’m planning to revisit more of Kelton’s work when I can work it in. The Stonehouse book, on the other hand, good enough thriller that it is, was not quite “deep” enough to make me want to pick up another book in this series any time soon. And, I’m still chugging along on the Twain bio, “chugging” being the key word in this sentence. 

Just when my re-reading of Jack Finney’s Time and Again was starting to make me a little nervous, it took off again for me. I found the introductory chapters to be fun, but the next several chapters seemed to get a little bogged down by long descriptions of what the main character saw during his first venture into the past. Lots of building and street descriptions that just went on for too long to suit me. But now that I’m past all of that, the real fun has begun, and I remember why I loved this one so much the first time around. 

Buckeyes is living up to everything I’ve heard or read about it. The main criticism has been that it is one of those novels that do more “telling” than “showing,” and that is certainly the case here. Plus, there are very few even longish sections of dialogue, so this 473-page novel can take a while to get through. But the plot is a fairly complicated one about two couples and their sons that I can’t help but be intrigued with. I’m 80% of the way through their story now, and I find myself reading quicker and quicker so that I can find out where each of the six characters end up. This is a good one.

I started Return to Sender, book number twenty-one in Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series a couple of days ago. I’m a little disappointed to find Walt doing his crime-fighting so far out of his home county again, but I’m hoping that the regulars join up with him at some point - the sooner the better. Walt is doing a favor for someone he considers family by trying to find a woman who disappeared somewhere along her 307-mile mail delivery route in the Red Desert four months earlier. Some are saying that Johnson is starting to repeat himself now; I hope to find that this is not true. But…yeah, maybe so.

I’m excited about some of the books that are near the top of my TBR now and will probably be reshuffling that list a bit in order to move those up to the top even quicker. No matter how quickly, or how much I read, I always feel like the next book is going to be the one I will remember forever. Wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2013) - Haruki Murakami

 

Although this is just my second experience with a Haruki Murakami novel, I’ve learned that he is immensely popular in his home country of Japan. In its first week alone, one million copies of Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage were printed - and by the end of its first month in publication, all but 15,000 of those books had been sold. And from what I’ve read, this is not uncommon in Japan for a new Haruki Murakami novel. 

“A unique sense of harmony developed between them - each one needed the other four and, in turn, shared the sense that they too were needed."

 

Tsukuru Tazaki is a thirty-six-year-old designer of Tokyo train stations who has been in a relatively deep depression for the last sixteen years - ever since the day he was mercilessly kicked out of the close-knit group of five high school friends that had sustained him through the ups and downs of his high school years. Tsukuru was the only one of the five to leave home to attend college in Tokyo, but he managed to stay part of the group by returning on weekends and holidays to spend almost the entire visits home with his friends. His family barely saw him. 

But suddenly, and totally without warning or any kind of explanation from any of his friends, Tsukuru was cast out of the group. Today it’s as if Tsukuru is stuck in some kind of emotional loop because he still feels such a deep pain from being cast out of the group that he sometimes considers suicide to be his best option. But now, Tsukuru has a new woman in his life who will not commit to a deeper relationship unless he finally confronts what happened to him all those years ago. She wants to start with a clean slate.

So Tsukuru is off on a quest, one that could finally give him the peace he needs to get on with the rest of his life - or not. 

I didn’t know what to expect from Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage when I began it, and that’s probably a good thing because I likely would not have picked it up if I had. This is a novel about loneliness, rejection, and self-identity. It tells a rather dark story, and maintains a hint of sadness even as Tsukuru edges closer and closer to learning the truth about why he was so suddenly ostracized by four people he once considered family. It is beautifully written and translated, and if you are in the mood for something like this, it will leave you with a lot to think about.

What I’m Reading This Week (4/23/26)

 Although I have five books going this week, they are not the ones I expected I would be reading after just purchasing over a dozen new ones a a few days ago. Of course, my long term reading of Ron Chernow’s Mark Twain continues, but the other four that I’m reading were not in my immediate plans before…suddenly they were. I did abandon one last week that I had high hopes for, Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks. That one just turned out to be more depressing than I can handle right now, and I grew weary of every single character in the story. Had no sympathy for any of them, including the main character who is just a misguided kid with few prospects in life. That was my second attempt to read Rule of the Bone, and I quit only about 30 pages farther in than I quit on it the first time around. There won't be a third try. 

In addition to the Twain bio, these are the four I’m reading now:

Buckeye was just destined to jump to the top of my TBR. Everywhere I looked for several days it seemed that someone was talking about this Patrick Ryan novel. The tipping point was finally reached when I read Susan’s review of Buckeye over on her blog The Cue Card. I’m over 40% of the way through the story now, and I’m enjoying it despite Ryan’s somewhat dry approach to storytelling. The best thing about Buckeye to this point is the quirkiness of Ryan’s characters; the worst is how slowly it’s all coming together. But maybe that approach works well as a whole, so I’m not going to judge him on that approach just yet. I do now understand, however, why so many readers seem to have given up on this long novel before finishing it.

I mentioned Time and Again to someone last week and then couldn’t stop thinking about how much I enjoyed reading it back in 1972. So I finally gave in and just started re-reading it for the first time in over 50 years. That’s the first edition cover of Finney’s classic time travel novel, so if you go looking for it today, it will look very different - especially after its move tie-in cover. This is the book that made me a life long fan of time travel fiction, and through the first two chapters it is holding up very well to my memories of that first reading. 

Over the years, I’ve spoken many times about Elmer Kelton’s western novels. I’ve read most of them now, including the juveniles, so when I read Kelton it’s almost always a re-read. Stand Proud is no exception. I first read it in the mid-eighties when I was just becoming a big fan of Kelton’s writing, and honestly, I remember very little about it. As it turns out, it’s the story of an early Texas settler now near the end of his life who is own trial for the murder of a man who has been an enemy of his for about 50 years. It takes place in the present, with flashbacks to the 1860s when they first became such heated enemies. I’m almost halfway through it, and although it’s moving a little slower than I remembered it, the story is holding up really well.

I drove over to Beaumont last week for lunch with a few old friends I graduated high school with some sixty years ago, and I needed an audiobook to keep me entertained and awake for the 200-mile round trip drive. Without much research, I downloaded An American Outlaw, the first book in John Stonehouse's (if that’s not a pen name, it’s perfect for someone who writes this kind of book) eight-book series featuring US Marshall John Whicher. Turns out that it was a great choice for a road trip because it is so gritty and action packed that my mind seldom drifted from it for more than a few seconds at a time. It reminds me of the kind of thing that Craig Johnson writes, and I’m a big fan of Johnson’s work so it’s a good fit for me. I’m not much into audiobooks these days, so I still haven’t finished it, but I plan to soon.

So there you have it. I do have a couple of new ones sitting firmly atop my TBR for next week, but I’m enjoying my re-reading so much right now that I might just revisit my shelves again before I get to those.

Small Things Like These (2021) - Claire Keegan

 Claire Keegan’s Small Things Like These is a difficult book to review without inadvertently straying into spoiler territory almost immediately. It comes in at fewer than 130 pages in total, putting it firmly in novella territory, and elimination of spoilers from the conversation leaves little but generalities to talk about. The problem is not with the generalities themselves; they are all positives. It’s more that without ruining the book for those yet to read it, it’s impossible to get much into the novella’s actual plot. 

But here goes an attempt to give you enough of the bare bones of the plot that you can decide for yourself if Small Things Like These is a story you want to experience for yourself.

It’s 1985. Bill Furlong, a coal merchant who makes regular deliveries to his customers, lives and works in New Ross, a town in southeast Ireland very much culturally dominated by the Catholic Church. Bill is a decent man, the father of five young daughters, and he works hard and long to provide for his family, especially now during the Christmas season when even just a little extra income can make all the difference in the world to their lives. Everyone knows him and respects what Bill does for the community while often taking a personal financial hit in order to ensure that none of his neighbors suffer during the harshest winter months.

And this is a harsh winter. It’s cold and gray outside, the shipyard has been closed for so long that people are struggling to pay their bills, and they depend on coal deliveries to keep their families warm through the worst of it. Bill is working harder than ever, but has little to show for his extra efforts.

Then just a few days before Christmas, Bill has his world view shaken while making a last minute coal delivery to the local convent. What he learns about the harsh reality of life inside that convent leaves Bill with a decision to make that is powerful enough to change not only the course of his own life, but that of his wife and five daughters, forever. Now the question becomes will he look away for his and his family's own good, or will he have the courage to do what he  knows is the right thing. 

Small Things Like These has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and it actually did win the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. There is even a 2024 movie adaptation of the novella staring Cillian Murphy that I would like to see now because of its great reviews. 

For something so short, this one packs quite a punch. Especially that last sentence.