By Lois Phillips Hudson (435 pages)
Published by Little, Brown
Bookish rating: 4.25
My copy of this novel has a disintegrating dust cover that I had to toss and the musty smell of a first-edition book published more than 50 years ago. I liked that about this book.
Set in what I believe is a mythical town (Eureka, North Dakota--the only Eureka I know of is in South Dakota, near the North Dakota border) during the 1930s, we follow the trials and tribulations of a family trying to keep the farm. Dust, family dynamics, WEATHER, and lack of money--this book has everything you'd expect from a Depression-era novel. But it's actually quite remarkable and so . . . unknown. In a different book, I read a fleeting mention of The Bones of Plenty, which bemoaned its obscurity and argued that Hudson's work could stand up against, if not surpass, Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. I think I agree.
Hudson focuses a lot of attention on the government mishandling of wheat prices, and tirades via the head-of-the-household farmer get a little long-winded and repetitive. And there is too much emphasis on italics for emphasis. But on the whole, these are minor issues.
Hudson expertly digs into what makes these people tick, their insecurities, their disappointments. The wife's juggling of babies with farm work is brilliant, and her frustration with her crankball husband even more so. The daughter is heartbreakingly real. And Dad? Well. He's something of a dick, but ultimately redeemable. The complexity of family during the context of Dakota, wheat-growing, and the Depression that Hudson portrays is astounding---I see bits and pieces of these people and their ways in my people, descended and descended and descended. As I've always said, a complex people who want nothing more than to be simple. Oh, who doesn't love a good paradox?
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