A Personal Country

New
Paperback
1998
$24.23

Coming up on the thirtieth anniversary of its first publication, this book brings alive what one man feels about his childhood home. The place is West Texas, seen across a long vista in which today's events and people merge with the author's boyhood and young manhood. It is a harsh, remote country, where the weather is always close and the horizon far away. The Brazos country of long-ago Fourth of July fishing expeditions; the remains of a way station of the Butterfield Stage Line; the streets of Abilene; the sparse grazing lands under infinite skies - all are made resonant by a native son's affection and understanding. It is a way of life - resilient and persnickety - that is almost gone. Above all, it is people: the author's grandmother, who had a mortal fear of bridges and whose premonitions of unnamed calamities (that as often as not happened), both alarmed and pleased the young boy; the blacksmith they awakened in the dead of night to repair the family Maxwell; the familiar neighbors; the rare and deliciously mysterious strangers.

Synopsis

Coming up on the thirtieth anniversary of its first publication, this book brings alive what one man feels about his childhood home. The place is West Texas, seen across a long vista in which today's events and people merge with the author's boyhood and young manhood. It is a harsh, remote country, where the weather is always close and the horizon far away. The Brazos country of long-ago Fourth of July fishing expeditions; the remains of a way station of the Butterfield Stage Line; the streets of Abilene; the sparse grazing lands under infinite skies - all are made resonant by a native son's affection and understanding. It is a way of life - resilient and persnickety - that is almost gone. Above all, it is people: the author's grandmother, who had a mortal fear of bridges and whose premonitions of unnamed calamities (that as often as not happened), both alarmed and pleased the young boy; the blacksmith they awakened in the dead of night to repair the family Maxwell; the familiar neighbors; the rare and deliciously mysterious strangers.

$24.23

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 360
Edition: Rev. Ed., 1st Pbk. Ed
Publisher: University of North Texas Press,U.S.
Published: 30 Sep 1998
ISBN 10: 1574410539
ISBN 13: 9781574410532

Author Bio

A. C. GREENE was born in 1923 in Abilene, Texas and after service in WWII he graduated from Abilene Christian College. He served on the staff of the Abilene Reporter-News, ran his own bookstore and headed the journalism department at Hardin-Simmons University. He joined the Dallas Times-Herald, serving as book editor and editorial page editor before being awarded a Dobie-Paisano fellowship during which he wrote A Personal Country. He wrote a column for The Dallas Morning News and wrote more than 22 books. He published numerous articles in The Atlantic, Texas Monthly, Southwest Review, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, New York Times Book Review, and wrote and narrated many television shows for PBS. He was a Fellow in the Texas State Historical Association and the Texas Institute of Letters.