Harold Burton Meyers revisits his pioneer roots in A Hero of Brag, a family saga that sweeps from Civil War Mississippi to the plains of early 20th-century Texas. Family founder Amos Gower enlists in the Confederate Army at 15. His war dismal and brief, he finds himslf son-in-law to a dead officer whose heroism he brags on as his own. Becoming a West Texas rancher-and patriarch of a tumultuous progeny-Amos blames a curse from the bank robber whose hanging he botches for his reversal of fortune. Fearing "posterity's verdict on a life he had lost track of, his own," Amos hears from his wife that he's just " A Hero of Brag ." This perceptive, beautifully written novel by the author of the National Novella Award-winning Geronimo's Ponies brings post-Civil War Texas to life.