A MAN OF THE FAMILY

This memoir in fictional form is, like its first person narrator, som'at puny as a story per se but it is indigenous and as fresh as the only yesterday (1920) when it took place. And it has been intended to bridge more than the physical world of the high Divide County of Texas -- also, two eras, with -- ""one uneasy foot on an accelerator, and the other booted and spurred."" In episodic form, this tells of breaking horses or working up sheep for a thousand head drive; of chasing wolves on a night hunt, and having to shoot a horse (""I mingled a few tears with the canteen water""); of the loss of a favorite dog, and the critical injury of his brother Ab; and of all the toughening experiences which helped to make ""a man"" of the boy Speck. It's real. It's nice. And it takes aholt of the reader. Yep.