Six Bits a Day

Written by Elmer Kelton

Narrated by George Guidall

Seven-time Spur Award winner Elmer Kelton sets this "completely absorbing" (Booklist) prequel to his award-winning classics The Good Old Boys and The Smiling Country in 1889 Texas. Hewey Calloway and his kid brother Walter head for West Texas- hoping to live their cowboy dream. But when Walter's crush on a gal threatens the dream, Hewey plots to get Walter back in the saddle again. ". related in a drawl that's sweet as pure honey."-Kirkus Reviews

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 5, 2008
• ISBN: 9781436185820

Elmer Kelton

Elmer Kelton (1926-2009) was the award-winning author of more than forty novels, including The Time It Never Rained, Other Men’s Horses, Texas Standoff and Hard Trail to Follow. He grew up on a ranch near Crane, Texas, and earned a journalism degree from the University of Texas. His first novel, Hot Iron, was published in 1956. Among his awards were seven Spurs from Western Writers of America and four Western Heritage awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His novel 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 42 years. He served in the infantry in World War II. He died in 2009.

Reviews for Six Bits a Day

[timbazzett · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For some reason SIX BITS A DAY seemed just a bit lightweight in comparison to the other two Hewey Calloway books, THE GOOD OLD BOYS and THE SMILING COUNTRY. Maybe it's because this last "prequel" in the Calloway trilogy presents a younger, slightly more callow version of Hewey. Maybe because older is sometimes better. Nevertheless, this is still a darn fine piece of writing. No surprise there, of course, as I've come to think of Elmer Kelton as the Dickens or Twain of the American western genre. And Hewey Calloway could even be Twain's Huck, a little older, after he "lit out for the territory." The book has all the elements of a pretty good western - cattle rustlers, scrapes with the law, a little bit of shooting - mostly "off-stage," good guys, bad guys and even a cattle drive. But Kelton's kind of western is usually a bit gentler, spoofing the kinda stuff you often got in the Saturday matinee westerns. Hewey is a bit cautious, if foolhardy, and doesn't fit the matinee model for white-hat hero. He himself admits to a Texas Ranger just before an imminent confrontation with a baddie: "I'd better tell you. I'm real consistent with a pistol. I miss every time." But the truth is, Hewey has a good heart and a kind of down-home smarts that makes seem just heroic enough - a genuine "good old boy," if there ever was one. Having met Hewey as an older man, I'm glad I got this chance to have met him as young man, one who'd finally escaped the drudgery of his farming boyhood and traveling (farther) west to seek his fortune as a real cowboy. And his ambitions are pretty modest, as he comments one night by the campfire - "This is the life we was born for ... Breathin' the clean outdoor air, eatin' from the fat of the land. We got good horses to ride and nobody around to boss us. Paradise couldn't be no better."Indeed, Hewey. Who needs all the complications and responsibilities that come along with success and wealth? Ride 'em, cowboy.