CLICK ON COVER TO ORDER

"In his solid inaugural novel, Wolves at the Door, Tom Chown evinces an historian's eye and a storyteller's soul. His saga of Henry and Tamsen Devon's journey from the American frontier to the founding of the modern Midwest is one part history lesson, one part sociology primer, and one part action movie script. It's also a well-crafted study of the frontier family, something rarely attempted since Willa Cather's masterworks. The early descriptions of Henry's experience as a Jayhawker in 1860's 'Bloody Kansas' are harrowing, and Chown describes the beauty, hardships, and spirituality of frontier Kansas in dead-on fashion. He constructs the novel in subtitled snippets, stories of everyday frontier lives. Henry Devon is an epic western character, forged by a savage world yet understanding how quickly it is all slipping away. His spiritual awakening while watching an Osage band hunt and kill a bull Buffalo is profound, providing a fine literary explanation of the historical respect and regret with which many settlers viewed the conquered and dispirited Indians. Inspired by his forebears, Chown's novel is a rich tapestry of accurate history, humor, folklore, and legend, expertly defining those who, in the last half of the 19th century, may well have been America's true 'greatest generation.'"— Jon Chandler: Author, singer/songwriter, and 1999 Western Writers of America Spur Award Winner for The Spanish Peaks.

 

 

 

WOLVES AT THE DOOR

By Thomas A. Chown

2007 by Pipers Willow

 

The events in this story are heavily researched and combined with family lore to tell a rousing tale of a pioneering family trying to establish a farm homestead in Bourbon County, Kansas in perilous Civil War times.  It begins in October of 1864 with Henry Devon holed up in a ditch with his Kansas State Militia’s 6^th regiment beside Brush Creek (today the very cosmopolitan Loose Park) on the second day of the so-called “Gettysburg of the West”, the Battle of Westport. 

 

Henry fortunately survives the fight and returns to his family down near Ft. Scott.  From that time through to the mid-1860’s Henry and his rock -solid wife Tamsen stand together against all sorts of triumph and tragedy to raise their children and scratch out a “proved up” homestead right on the border between “bleeding” Kansas and Missouri.  All the tensions and hatreds of the Civil War are part of their daily lives.

 

The violence and fear get so bad that coupled with what will eventually appear to be a generational family trait of wanderlust, the Devons sell out and wagon train themselves out to Barber County to become town fathers of Kiowa., Kansas.  They are on the true frontier.  Their family grows and over the next ten years experiences many historically correct adventures normal, but nevertheless wild and wooly, for the times.  We see examples of both Henry and Tamsen’s personalities, how they change as they age.

 

We also see the children grow into themselves.  By the late 1880’s the Devons decide their pioneering days in Kiowa are over and move over to the more developed railroad town of LaJunta, Colorado.  Youngest son Tom comes of age and proves to be the most interesting of all the children.  He is by nature somewhat of a leader but falls into a character trap that proves tragic.  He is involved in a public hanging of a black man who’s guilt is not only questionable, but the violence of which changes Tom for life.

 

This book ends with Tom meeting Catherine Rodden, a Harvey Girl from Wisconsin who has just arrived with the Santa Fe into LaJunta.  They meet, clash and then fall in love.  Their marriage causes further stress in the family because Henry is English Protestant and Catherine is Irish Catholic.  Tom and Catherine basically throw up their hands in frustration and head into the sunset west to begin their own life together.  The next book, Full Circle, will continue their story.

 

“Tom Chown’s Wolves at the Door is a delight, a rare and true piece of classic American plains story…a heart warming story worth anybody’s time.  The next volume (Full Circle) is eagerly awaited.”—W.Michael Farmer (author)

 

“Filled with the warm whimsy reminiscent of Mark Twain”— Richard Jensen (author)

 

“A natural storyteller, Chown shares a warm family saga while ignoring none of the hardships of life on the prairie in the Old West.”—Linda Porter & Pia Brown Marion County (FL) Public Library

 

“The reading is easy and charming…lots of humor and pathos…characters quite real with both appealing qualities and some flaws…a heartwarming saga of Kansas, this will be popular with many readers”.— Sue Blechl, reviewer for Kansas Libraries Newsletter as it appeared in the Emporia Gazette

 

“It’s a fun book.  Of course I enjoy history, but I think many people will enjoy this book”— Don Lowman, curator of the Otero County (CO) Museum as it appeared in the LaJunta Tribune Democrat

 

More reviews...

COMING SOON!

"Tom Chown has done significant research into the settings, the events and other culture of the times in order to make his novelized family history as authentic as possible." —Ms. Sue Blechl, Director, Emporia (KS) Public Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FULL CIRCLE

By Thomas A. Chown

2010 American Book Pub

This is the continuance of the Devon family’s travels through the early and mid-20^th Century in the American west and mid-west.  Tom’s connections with the Santa Fe railroad are parlayed into employment with the Colorado Fuel and Iron coal mine system in New Mexico ands Colorado.  He becomes a “combustion engineer” and ultimately moves from mine to mine to install the power equipment.  While that profession becomes his lifelong career, the locations where he is needed keep changing.  He and Catherine start out in the grimy and isolated little mining town of Madrid, NM.  Life is unbelievably dulling for Catherine and she increasingly becomes resentful.  The violence and depression even begin to rattle Tom.  However, there are also many humorous events which serve to lighten the mood.  As Tom’s expertise grows, so does the demand for him on up the line in both New Mexico and Colorado mining operations.  We get a good look at early Santa Fe as well as Las Vegas, NM, all historically accurate.  Eventually the Devons are moved up to the Pictou mine near Walsenburg, CO.  Tom is present at the tragic and famed Ludlow Massacre where the Colorado militia is called in to quell a vicious labor strike.  Violence and fear become overwhelming to bear for Catherine and she longs for safer days that she remembers from her girlhood in Wisconsin.  Their children Walter and Marion are getting to the age at which she feels they must escape, although son Walter experiences exciting events, such as getting cornered by wolves with his father, and getting shot through the knee by his arch enemy, Juan Garcia.  Finally, on a night when bullets sail through their crude company house, both Tom and Catherine explode with frustration.  They toss what little possessions they have into a Model T Ford and with the kids light out for a new life back in Wisconsin.  The second half of the story is set “back East”.  The family continues to evolve as Tom and Catherine’s relationship is strained while both Walter and Marion grow into adults.  We see the effects of the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918, WWI, and personal life and death in Milwaukee.  Both Walter and Marion marry fellow Marquette University students and start their own lives.  We live through the grim final days of both Catherine and Tom, and the book then ends with hope for the future.  A unique way of life both for this family as well as for an entire generation of Americans is disappearing.  The Depression is long gone, WWII comes to an end and progress is beating down doors.  The charming and aggressive Walter Devon is sure times are looking good and the world will be his oyster.   In the next book, as yet untitled, we will see that he is quite right.

More reviews...