DTM_Summer'26_Flattened - Flipbook - Page 12
Written by Amber Alexander
Elmer Kelton was not larger-than-life and never
became the kind of performative “literary figure”
whose own adventures could rival that of a
fictional character, authors like Hemingway,
Capote, F. Scott Fitzgerald, or Mark Twain, each as
captivating in their personal lives as their creations
on the page. Elmer’s characters aren’t outsized,
either—they are often stubborn, isolated,
entrenched in old-fashioned values, and maybe a
little eccentric, but always real. The characters who
populate his fiction are based on people he knew.
Elmer, in his 2007 autobiography, said that he tried
to “avoid superheroes, for I have never known any.”
Instead of the larger-than-life, seven-foot-tall
heroes of pulp fiction, his characters “are five-eight
and nervous,” which might’ve described Elmer
himself.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Mark Twain.
