The Kings of Big Spring, by Bryan Mealer

Growing up in Corpus Christi, I was tangentially aware of the booms and busts of the Texas oil business.  No one in my family worked in that industry, but I remember my friend's dad talking about gauging the local economy by the flares coming from the refineries along the ship channel.  One popular restaurant had a special that was priced according to the daily cost of a barrel of oil.  My summer job as a construction helper building an offshore oil platform taught me a lot about the lives of these hard-working men (and a few women).

Bryan Mealer's family rode the waves of the booms and bust more than most.  His book The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family's Search for the American Dream chronicles several generations of his ancestor's.  Like many families, his left Georgia at the end of the 19th century to come find new opportunities in Texas.  They moved from place to place, but the West Texas town of Big Spring becomes the focus of the book and of the family's fortunes.

The many stories of Mealer's family are mildly interesting.  There is a lot of hard work and rags to riches here.  But to someone who's not related to these people, I thought, "That's nice but I don't really care about what happens to them."  Mealer ties his family's story to the stories of some more significant figures, particularly his father's partnership with Grady Cunningham, who married Raymond Tollett's daughter.  Tollett had led Big Spring's Cosden Oil through tremendous growth.  Grady longed to live up to his father-in-law's reputation as a community leader, and, of course, as a high-rolling oil man.

Mealer weaves these personal stories together against the backdrop of a history of the oil business in Texas.  For interested Texas buffs, people involved in the oil business, and people in Mealer's family or who know his family, this is a great read.  But for anyone else, in spite of Mealer's excellent writing, it barely rises to the level of compelling.  I certainly didn't hate the book, but finished with a take-it-or-leave-it shrug.