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What the Thunder Said: A Novella and Stories
What the Thunder Said is the 2008 winner of the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction. In the Dust Bowl of 1930s Oklahoma, a family comes apart, as sisters Mackie and Etta Spoon keep secrets from their father, and from each other.
Etta, the dangerously impulsive favorite of her father, longs for adventure someplace far away from the bleak and near-barren plains, and she doesn’t care how she gets there; watchful Mackie keeps house and obeys the letter of her father’s law, while harboring her own dreams. After the massive 1935 Black Sunday dust storm brings ruin to the family, the sisters’ conflict threatens further damage. Seeking escape, and wagering their futures on an Indian boarding school runaway named Audie Kipp, the two leave home to forge their own separate paths, each setting off in search of a new life, each finding a fate different than she expected.
Through shifting perspectives, voices, and characters, What the Thunder Said tracks their wayward progress, following the sisters, their children, and those whose stories intersect with theirs as they range across the high plains of the West in the decades after the Great Depression. Etta’s hitchhiking encounter with a bookish couple in the Garden of the Gods; a prairie jackrabbit drive, during which Mackie’s son, Jesse, discovers the cloth he’s cut from; an old man’s failing memory as he tells of spying on an Indian loner on the outskirts of a Kansas town; a middle-aged doctor’s chance meeting with a mysterious wayfarer while on a quest to New Mexico in search of his lost youth; and Mackie’s late reconciliation with her aged father, whose habit of silence has bred her own---all are rendered in vivid prose that captures the plains and the people who endured devastation and lived to look back on it.
Slow-gathering, powerful, with passages of haunting beauty, What the Thunder Said is the long-awaited third work of fiction by one of our most acclaimed storytellers.
Etta, the dangerously impulsive favorite of her father, longs for adventure someplace far away from the bleak and near-barren plains, and she doesn’t care how she gets there; watchful Mackie keeps house and obeys the letter of her father’s law, while harboring her own dreams. After the massive 1935 Black Sunday dust storm brings ruin to the family, the sisters’ conflict threatens further damage. Seeking escape, and wagering their futures on an Indian boarding school runaway named Audie Kipp, the two leave home to forge their own separate paths, each setting off in search of a new life, each finding a fate different than she expected.
Through shifting perspectives, voices, and characters, What the Thunder Said tracks their wayward progress, following the sisters, their children, and those whose stories intersect with theirs as they range across the high plains of the West in the decades after the Great Depression. Etta’s hitchhiking encounter with a bookish couple in the Garden of the Gods; a prairie jackrabbit drive, during which Mackie’s son, Jesse, discovers the cloth he’s cut from; an old man’s failing memory as he tells of spying on an Indian loner on the outskirts of a Kansas town; a middle-aged doctor’s chance meeting with a mysterious wayfarer while on a quest to New Mexico in search of his lost youth; and Mackie’s late reconciliation with her aged father, whose habit of silence has bred her own---all are rendered in vivid prose that captures the plains and the people who endured devastation and lived to look back on it.
Slow-gathering, powerful, with passages of haunting beauty, What the Thunder Said is the long-awaited third work of fiction by one of our most acclaimed storytellers.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published March 6, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
November 24, 2014
As a newcomer to Kansas and the Great Plains, I was enthralled with Peery's ability to tightly weave the landscape into her characters' choices, personality traits and world view. Her book is divided into two section: "Book One" about a Missouri man who moves west with a new bride and raises two daughters and takes on an almost-son farmhand. We watch them before, during and after the Dust Bowl, which does have an impact on their lives, but does not contain the main conflicts they have to manage. The characters work a land that is harsh and unforgiving and which forces them to deal primarily with each other--which is no simple task given their (all-too-human) oddities. Peery creates such complicated inner landscapes for each of these characters, I'm amazed at her ability to make it all fit together in a plot that pulled me along with great interest.
"Book Two" is a more loosely connected work of short stories, which carries forward characters from "Book One" and their descendants. It's interesting to see these people move through several decades and states, each with his/her own uneasy connection to the Great Plains region. I was giddy to see place names that I'm growing to recognize now that I'm settling into this part of the US. (This is the 9th state I've inhabited in the US.) I wouldn't mark it strictly as "regional literature," but it's functioning that way for me.
"Book Two" is a more loosely connected work of short stories, which carries forward characters from "Book One" and their descendants. It's interesting to see these people move through several decades and states, each with his/her own uneasy connection to the Great Plains region. I was giddy to see place names that I'm growing to recognize now that I'm settling into this part of the US. (This is the 9th state I've inhabited in the US.) I wouldn't mark it strictly as "regional literature," but it's functioning that way for me.
May 10, 2017
Loved! Amazing how some books come into your life at the right time. Takes place primarily during the dust bowl years, which was fascinating. Loved the characters and the connections, known and unknown throughout. Beautifully written and inspiring.
April 30, 2020
Great prose, great writing, colorful characters, life lessons, and life without lessons. Thank you Janet Peery for a great read.
October 12, 2024
This is a very fine, insightful book about what happens to people's psyches and emotional balance when they are caught in an ongoing disaster. What it does to families, relationships and children's inability to have a proper childhood are shown. It is set in Oklahoma in the dust bowl and the time following. It's characters are people who stayed but suffered the loss of hope, estrangement and a hardening that explains a lot to me about my own forbears. It gave me a whole new way of thinking about these matters even though I've read quite a number of books set in this period.
August 15, 2013
The central character is Maxine Spoon, a woman who was born on an Oklahoma farm just before the dustbowl days of the Depression. Most of the stories depict Maxine’s point of view but some are told by those who cross paths with her or her kin. Regardless of the narrator, each story shows how the Depression left a life-long mark on those it touched.
As Peery writes, the “feeling dwells in you for life and haunts your sleep. Ask anybody who lived through those drouthy times; I’m not the only one who says this. Scratch Okies of a certain age—whether they’re gone-aways or stuck-it-outs—and it’ll be as though you struck a match, that fear will flare.”
What the Thunder Said is powerful and spare, each sentence beautifully crafted. Peery shows the impact of rough times, each of her stories ringing with hardship and courage. A wonderful novel-in-stories.
As Peery writes, the “feeling dwells in you for life and haunts your sleep. Ask anybody who lived through those drouthy times; I’m not the only one who says this. Scratch Okies of a certain age—whether they’re gone-aways or stuck-it-outs—and it’ll be as though you struck a match, that fear will flare.”
What the Thunder Said is powerful and spare, each sentence beautifully crafted. Peery shows the impact of rough times, each of her stories ringing with hardship and courage. A wonderful novel-in-stories.
August 2, 2008
Peery’s book consists of a novella and short stories, all character-focused with a strong sense of place. The works are loosely connected by members of the Spoon family, though each stands alone.
Many of Peery’s characters have set out running. They keep that on-the-lam mindset through their lives, whether it’s figurative or literal. They’re running from more than running to, and sometimes they’re running because it’s all they know.
Peery imparts a strong sense of place to her work. She describes the Dust Bowl scenes with such vividness that readers can almost taste the dust. But it’s her haunting and haunted characters who drive the stories; their seemingly insignificant lives remain compelling long after the book is closed.
Many of Peery’s characters have set out running. They keep that on-the-lam mindset through their lives, whether it’s figurative or literal. They’re running from more than running to, and sometimes they’re running because it’s all they know.
Peery imparts a strong sense of place to her work. She describes the Dust Bowl scenes with such vividness that readers can almost taste the dust. But it’s her haunting and haunted characters who drive the stories; their seemingly insignificant lives remain compelling long after the book is closed.
September 18, 2009
A compelling story told in small linked pieces, as well as a larger novella that frames the rest of the stories to come. As with Peery's other novel, it took me awhile to get into it, but the novella had me intensely emotionally involved and involved with the writing itself. My main quibble is that the novella was so outstanding that the rest of the book was massively overshadowed by it. I don't think this is something that should have been a linked collection - the main narrative is so striking that it easily could hold its own as a more developed novel. Still, a good read.
December 30, 2008
I don't know why I got this book out of the library but once I started it I knew I had to buy it (that is how I operate) and will read it again and again. The thing I liked best was its ability to transform me to the West in 1930's America and my ableness to relate to both the main characters and the great great story it told, very original!
July 16, 2009
I didn't finish all the stories, but really liked the novella. Her characters are believable, and their stories of the dust bowl and its harsh realities are too real. I read it, in part, because I know so little of this region/era.
August 11, 2011
A nice collection of a novella and other short stories that follows a family through Dust Bowl Oklahoma. We see a small slice of each family member's life. Through these glimpses, we begin to see the big picture, that through strife and pain, people persevere.
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July 11, 2007I am kinda of on a great plains...Kansas and Oklahoma kick recently...this is another dust bowl era novella and some other shorts.
July 20, 2008
Fantastic collection of connected stories. Gorgeous writing (of course) which also manages to devastate at times.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews