It Was Fun While it Lasted

M. H. Major's memoir and personal letters offer an insightful account of an ordinary man's resilience, fear, hope, and mortality as he struggled to succeed as a wildcatter to find oil in South Texas. One of four brothers ordered by their Depression-era father to become doctors, Millard was the only son to strike out as a geologist in a business he'd been taught to distrust.

As World War II raged, finding new production was easy enough. But an oilman must discover new drilling prospects year...