Cooper wrote much of the draft of the novel on used carbon paper. "Sironia, Texas" was set in a fictional Texas town which appeared to be based on Waco; many of the characters were known to have been based in some part on local personalities, but to what extent Cooper would never admit. The book, an extension of a theme first developed in his 1939 short story "The Catch of Sironia", remained on the "New York Times" Bestseller List for eleven weeks, and won him a 1952 Houghton Mifflin Literary Fellowship; it has been noted that he purchased a Brooks Brothers suit to attend the fellowship ceremony. He also received McMurray Bookshop Award, granted in 1953 by the Texas Institute of Letters; he used the money to set up a fund for needy writers. The book sold for $10 at the time of publication; this, coupled with the fact that Cooper refused to entertain options for foreign distribution, soon led to its falling out of favor.