First, I must offer thanks to those who made it possible for me to read this book: Thanks to Dave Marsland, Diane Barnes and Sara Steger for keeping tFirst, I must offer thanks to those who made it possible for me to read this book: Thanks to Dave Marsland, Diane Barnes and Sara Steger for keeping the book alive! And Howard who brought it to our attention in the first place. All of their reviews are worth checking out.
Life could not be any harder than it was or money more scarce.
This is a novel that is hardly known and should be known by everyone. Written in 1939 by a woman who was just edged out on the publication of her novel by John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, Sanora Babb had a masterpiece in her hands and the world wouldn’t know about it until it was finally published in 2004. This novel demonstrates the plight of the farmers who tried and failed to farm on the high plains of Oklahoma in land that was so unforgiving. These families withstood the droughts and the dust storms that occurred during the Great Depression and Babb writes with her first hand experience.
In this story, the Dunne family live a life of drudgery and hardship with no way to fight the natural disasters that wipe out their hopes and dreams - simple things like building a house of their own and having enough food to eat. Try as they might, the Dunnes are barely making ends meet when they are forced to abandon their land and head west to California where they expect to find a glorious promised land of blooming crops and green valleys and plenty of work and food for everyone. What they find is a place overrun by people just like them - destitute and starving refugees looking for work and living in tents or their cars hoping for a break that will help them feed their families. Many are immigrants but all are hardworking men and women who just need to work in order to survive. Their lives become migratory as they move from place to place picking peaches, prunes, apricots, cotton, etc. They discover a flawed system in which ‘those who have’ lord their power and status over ‘those who have nothing’.
In the last few years they had learned how to do without things they always considered necessities in other days. Maybe you wouldn’t call it hunger, he thought, but it’s a kind of left-handed starvation in more ways than one.
Babb’s novel is thankfully becoming more known and I hope that it will continue to spread its recognition. This is an important piece of history written by one who knew poverty. She was able to pack a big punch of themes into this slim novel - natural disasters, greed of banks and corporations, misuse and exploitation of workers. By the end, readers understand that men and women want to live lives with dignity.
A conversation with grandpa:
”Do you know everything, Konkie?”
“Not by a long shot! If I did I wouldn’t be in the fix I am.”
“Maybe when we grow up we can find out how to fix you,” Myra said.
“Maybe so. Maybe so. Maybe you can fix the world. It’s out of joint somewheres.”
“Maybe if it was fixed there wouldn’t be any poor people like us.”...more
Paulette Jiles will win over historical fiction lovers with her realistic yet straightforward prose along with some well-developed characters that wilPaulette Jiles will win over historical fiction lovers with her realistic yet straightforward prose along with some well-developed characters that will win your heart. Stormy Weather is an ode to the struggles of the drought, dust bowl, Depression and drilling of oil in 1930’s west Texas. Jiles’ expert knowledge and research always provides a meaty and rich story with many nuggets of history and pop culture of the era sprinkled throughout.
Jeanine is the main protagonist, the favorite middle daughter of Jack Stoddard, an oil-field laborer and a dirt-track racehorse entrepreneur. As a young girl, Jeanine experiences first hand her father’s drinking, carousing and gambling. She follows him from poker games to racetracks trying to hold their family together. The family is constantly moving from town to town all over west Texas searching for oil work. The stock market crash causes desperation for families and work extremely difficult to find for those who want it. An unexpected accident on the oil rig sends Jeanine and her mother and sisters back to her mother’s abandoned birthplace where they all react to their new circumstances in a different way. Jeanine takes charge determined to learn farming and get the place back into working order. Mayme, the oldest, takes a job to help pay the farm’s back taxes and school-aged Bea loses herself in her books and writing. Their mother, Elizabeth stakes a claim in a wildcat oil well with hopes that her shares will someday pay off when the well hits oil - IF the well hits oil.
The weather plays a huge role as it never ever cooperates. The 7 year drought in Texas from 1930-1936 hugely affected crops and left people homeless. Extremely severe high winds and choking dust swept through this area killing and destroying with its strength. Rain was a pipe dream during this time. Living day to day was a struggle because farmers never knew if they would lose their crops or their livestock.
The Stoddard women come together in a beautiful tribute to love of family and hard work to persevere in extremely tough times. The sisters’ upbringing gave them the strength of will to see it through and never give up.
Jiles does this novel justice with all of the feels and charms of the era with a taste of thoughtfully chosen details that show up in the backdrop of the story - the looming WW, FDR’s New Deal, Model T’s, the Vanderbilts, Disney and Snow White, songs and Movietone news shorts that played on the family’s console radio. These extras helped to give this novel a very authentic feel. ...more
The kinship bond between them was tangible, such that the children seemed inseparable, a blood brotherhood of commingled beings. Loss and grief had onThe kinship bond between them was tangible, such that the children seemed inseparable, a blood brotherhood of commingled beings. Loss and grief had only made their physical need and ache for each other more clearly manifest.
Pip Tattnal and his half-brother Otto were all each had in the world. After the death of their father, they were discarded to live in the White Camellia Orphanage. When Otto is cruelly murdered, Pip longs to know why and doesn’t seem to be getting any answers from those in charge at the orphanage. Now, all alone in the world, Pip determines to find his place of belonging. An unusual and imaginative boy of 12, Pip constantly read and fantasized about the stories of kings and soldiers within the three treasured books left to him from his father. Among other peculiar characteristics was his aversion to looking anyone in the eye. He disliked pale blue eyes. The only color he loved were brown, the color of Otto’s eyes. From the moment of Otto’s murder he was always searching for guilt in men’s eyes.
When he tried to consider who might have done such a deed, who had put his particular set of hands around that neck, and who had crowned Otto in wire, fog seemed to fill his brain. This non-thought and non-answer made a kind of sense. For him, the murder never felt like an enigma. Pip always felt that the plain and simple answer, the killer, was the evil flaming in his eyes.
Having made the decision to leave the orphanage behind, Pip chooses to set off into the world by riding the rails like a tramp, a drifter. He takes the memories of Otto with him and is always thinking of his brother. He carries a shell in his bib pocket, a reminder of Otto, which he keeps close to his heart. Pip grows up on the rails, a restless outcast, never able to remain in one place for long. He learns the ways of this life and tries to make a place for himself. However, there is always a nagging sadness that he doesn’t belong to anyone or any place. He search is always for kinship. He meets some very eccentric people along his travels across the country who help heal him. His journey is not a safe one but full of dangers, suffering and pain. Pip’s love for reading about history, battles, Indians, knights and story telling are a bright light within the grief and sorrow of his traveling plight. He was always yearning for knowledge of the past.
A Death at the White Camellia Orphanage by Marly Youmans tells a very touching story of a young boy dealing with grief and figuring out his purpose. Not many stories are written from the point of view of a child during the Depression. However, Youmans realistically captures the sights, sounds, scents and mood of this hard-scrabble lifestyle of vagrants hopping the rails. Her prose is descriptive in a very poetic way leaving you feeling as if you were there, wind in your hair, sleeping on a noisy boxcar not knowing from where your next meal will come or who you will meet. Pip’s story is a remarkable coming of age tale filled with heartbreak and hope that he can find the answers and a place where he belongs....more
Well, this is a hard one to review as I should have loved this one like so many others have already expressed. The URL Book Club August Adventure Novel
Well, this is a hard one to review as I should have loved this one like so many others have already expressed. The premise of this novel is a hefty one – with a setting of an Indian school in Minnesota during the Depression – the plot and characters had huge potential to WOW me. And the author’s inspirations taken from Dickens, Twain and Homer should have sealed the deal. Instead, I’m a bit underwhelmed with certain aspects of this story. But there is a lot to like as well.
First with the likes – We hear the 80-year-old Odie (Odysseus O’Banion) tell the coming-of-age tale of the summer of 1932 when he and his brother Albert were sent to the Lincoln Indian Training School set on the banks of the Gilead River. As explained in the book, this river feeds into the great Mississippi River and gives the reader the sense of Mark Twain. Odie and Albert take off in a canoe with an Indian friend, Mose, and a young girl named Emmy. These young orphans flee the abusive situation at the school headed for a journey down the Mississippi after an unforeseen crime occurs, committed by one of these children. Odie, the self-appointed storyteller, relays the story of these Vagabonds who encounter a number of very daunting challenges along the way. The school’s cruel superintendent has no intention of letting them escape thus they are constantly looking behind them and trying to get further ahead of being captured and returned to the school.
Many nods to Homer’s Odyssey give the reader a strong feeling for wandering and meeting different groups of people as Odysseus did. The main theme here is finding one’s HOME and all along the way, these characters meet a variety of different types of families. Each time a different question of faith and God is introduced. We see Odie’s struggle with God and his growth throughout in defining who God is and how God works. Forgiveness, love and what makes a family are highly explored themes. The adventures and the people they meet change their lives and give them a new idea of who they are and what their futures could behold.
Several dislikes brought my rating down and have to do with some choices the author made which gave the story an unbelievability. The use of certain characters being able to see one’s past or one’s future created a mystical element and for me did not work with the theme of faith and forgiveness. The ending threw me a bit for a loop with the revelations and seemed way too tidy and unrealistic. And I am not a fan of epilogues. I rather enjoy leaving the end of the story as it is without knowing how they turned out 20 years down the road. Many, many people love this book and this author so I must be an outlier on this one. Don’t let my review sway you from reading this if you love this type of tale. It had a lot of great things going for it, but for me, it lost a couple of stars. ...more
Hum. This was ok, but I didn’t fall in love with it. While I love reading historical fiction and especially that which is based in Kentucky and in AppHum. This was ok, but I didn’t fall in love with it. While I love reading historical fiction and especially that which is based in Kentucky and in Appalachia, I found the historical focus on the packhorse librarians lacking. The focus was more on settling up very dramatic characters and situations that, in my opinion, detracted from the historical fiction this book is labeled. ...more
This book told the story of the WPA’s Packhorse Librarians, women delivering books to people living in the hills of Appalachia in Kentucky. Bluet (CusThis book told the story of the WPA’s Packhorse Librarians, women delivering books to people living in the hills of Appalachia in Kentucky. Bluet (Cussy Mary) worked as a librarian but she also had a rare skin condition that caused her to appear blue. The Blues were shunned and persecuted because of their “color”. Bluet’s daily burden didn’t get in the way of her generosity and kindness to her patrons and to those less fortunate.
The writing fell a bit short and the ending was somewhat melodramatic but overall a good message throughout of how to overcome one’s shortcomings and believe you are enough despite what others think....more
Wow! Being from Kentucky I can’t believe I had never heard of Wendell Berry until recently (thanks Modern Mrs. Darcy!). I am so glad to have met JaybeWow! Being from Kentucky I can’t believe I had never heard of Wendell Berry until recently (thanks Modern Mrs. Darcy!). I am so glad to have met Jayber and his small community that he loves. This is a telling of his life story as if you had hours and hours to spend sitting in the barber chair listening to Jayber, the bachelor barber who believes in roots and home, talk. He is a remarkable, philosophical, loving, content man who knows what matters in life and lives for what is right and good. Orphaned at an early age, Jayber grew up in an orphanage and spent time away from his hometown only to find his way back to the place that was always a part of him. He’s an ardent listener and observer of the town’s people and happenings. His story, as well as Port William’s story, is not always a happy one but his outlook is so positive and thoughtful that one desires to have an ounce of his generosity.
Some of my favorite quotes:
“I was being preserved by the forces of charity in an institution, and at the same time I was preserving in myself a country and a life, steadfastly remembered, to which I secretly reserved my affection and my entire loyalty. I belonged, even defiantly to what I remembered, and not to the place where I was.”
“The feeling was that I could not be extracted from Port William like a pit from a plum, and that it could not be extracted from me; even death could not set it and me apart.”
“There are moments when the heart is generous, and then it knows that for better or worse our lives are woven together here, one with one another and with the place and all the living things.”
“Both past and future were disappearing from them, the past because nobody would remember it, the future because nobody could imagine it. What they knew was passing from the world. Before long it would not be known. They were the last of their kind.”...more
Despite the fact that Olive Ann Burns passed away before completing the sequel, the editor’s remembrance at the end was lovely to read. She was able tDespite the fact that Olive Ann Burns passed away before completing the sequel, the editor’s remembrance at the end was lovely to read. She was able to shed much light on the author’s life and the challenges and successes Olive Ann faced while writing these books. I was enlightened by her strength and endurance....more
The writing is really beautiful and this story of friends (two couples who meet teaching in the English department, Depr New thoughts on reread soon…..
The writing is really beautiful and this story of friends (two couples who meet teaching in the English department, Depression era, Wisconsin). They quickly become the absolute best of friends and remain so the rest of their lives. I really did love the connections between these couples and how they just love each other. I do believe that for some people this is a 4 or 5 star book and I can definitely understand why. For me, not completely understanding all of the literary references didn’t allow me to have a total experience with the writing....more
4.5 stars. Beautifully written. Tearful, meaningful, heart breaking. I would reread this someday. The writing must be savored slowly to appreciate. Th4.5 stars. Beautifully written. Tearful, meaningful, heart breaking. I would reread this someday. The writing must be savored slowly to appreciate. There are some elegant phrases & thought-provoking sentences. ...more
Maude’s story is written and told here by her granddaughter, Donna. It is like most family stories during the 1920’s and 1930’s when Maude was a girl,Maude’s story is written and told here by her granddaughter, Donna. It is like most family stories during the 1920’s and 1930’s when Maude was a girl, full of hardships. I couldn’t put it down wanting to know what would happen to her next not wanting to believe the sadnesses that happened throughout her life. I love these types of novels best, true life family experiences. It’s very eye opening. I loved the writing style, easy and straight forward. Highly recommend. ...more
I love reading books from different periods and eras. This story was told through the backdrop of the dust bowl in Oklahoma during the 1930’s. The wriI love reading books from different periods and eras. This story was told through the backdrop of the dust bowl in Oklahoma during the 1930’s. The writing was lyrical and real. Nothing added to it to “fancy it up”. It wasn’t necessary. This wasn’t a fancy period but a harsh environment with struggling families having to make tough choices. It’s a story of faith and the hardships that come with belief and sin. The characters were so vivid and real. Even though I hated some of the choices they made. ...more
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