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The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

Timothy Egan

Start date: April 15, 2016

Finish date: May 15, 2016

Discussion: Side Reads - Nonfiction

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What Members Thought

Aug 11, 2013 Wendy rated it liked it

Shelves: american-west, audiobooks, non-fiction, national-book-award

I appreciated this as someone who has lived in Texas, Nebraska and Colorado, and who used to stop in Dalhart, TX for gas--it's a sad little town, and there's not much else there. I didn't realize at the time that Dalhart was basically "ground zero" for the great dust bowl of the 1930's, though I probably could have guessed. It's one of those desolate, frozen-in-time places stuck in the 50s. Another familiar, featured (and, yes, desolate) location was the Comanche Grassland in Southern Colorado. I appreciated this as someone who has lived in Texas, Nebraska and Colorado, and who used to stop in Dalhart, TX for gas--it's a sad little town, and there's not much else there. I didn't realize at the time that Dalhart was basically "ground zero" for the great dust bowl of the 1930's, though I probably could have guessed. It's one of those desolate, frozen-in-time places stuck in the 50s. Another familiar, featured (and, yes, desolate) location was the Comanche Grassland in Southern Colorado. There are only the odd cow, antelope and rattlesnakes out there now, and I can't imagine the area ever being plowed-up farmland--but if what Egan writes is accurate, almost every inch of US prairie was put to the plow by 1930, and hardly any untouched prairie remains today.

Tragedy is a common thread throughout the history of the American West--native people, animals, plants, even grasses were driven off, ripped up, and thrown out. The dust bowl fascinates me because it seems to been the first big clue in history to modern (Western/European) people that natural resources can be ruined and destroyed. Sod-busters plowed up the drought-resistant native grass, raked in a few years of bumper-crop wheat, then watched the very earth blow away from under them. This was a man-made environmental disaster on a grand scale, but while modern soil conservation practices have prevented this specific even from ever repeating itself (yet), it's hard not to wonder when and where nature will land her next punch. As a southwest resident myself, it's disturbing to me that we are draining our crumbling aquifers so that we can take 10 minute showers and have green lawns where only cactus should grow. The natural spring that fed a lovely pond and park in my neighborhood dried up this past winter (it had irrigated the area since before the 1900s) and I wonder if this, too, is another proverbial canary in the coalmine.

But I should wander back to my actual review--obviously this is a topic that interests me and still feels relevant today, and I'm guessing similar thoughts drove the National Book Award committee, too. However, I didn't feel that this book was organized as well as it could have been. The anecdotes of life during the dust bowl are vivid and interesting, but they don't always flow very well, and often feel literally cut and pasted together without transitions or logical arrangement. At some point I noticed that the details started repeating themselves (how prairie grass kept the dirt in place, rabbit drives, animals dying of dust consumption). It didn't really feel like it built up to anything "big", and was ultimately disappointed that the discussion of what has been done since the 30's to prevent future dust bowls, and could this happen again, was very short and tacked on as a brief epilogue. Still, I think that as an important, relevant subject, this is worth a read, especially by those of us living in the West. ...more

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Nov 25, 2012 El rated it it was ok

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, science-and-medicine

It must have been a year of slim-pickin's when this book won the National Book Award.

The subject matter is incredibly interesting to me. There were black and white photographs interspersed throughout the book - wonderful edition.

But the writing. The writing! Overblown, flowery, melodramatic. UGH. It was exhausting to read at times.

Also, despite the interesting subject matter, it's probably hard to write one book of a certain length without repeating some facts, changing up the wordage, whatever. It must have been a year of slim-pickin's when this book won the National Book Award.

The subject matter is incredibly interesting to me. There were black and white photographs interspersed throughout the book - wonderful edition.

But the writing. The writing! Overblown, flowery, melodramatic. UGH. It was exhausting to read at times.

Also, despite the interesting subject matter, it's probably hard to write one book of a certain length without repeating some facts, changing up the wordage, whatever. So I understand the need to toss in some other anecdotes to try to fill the gaps, plump up the pages, add historical context. But the additions fell short. They didn't lend much to the subject matter at all, outside of pointing out that some other stuff was going on during this period as well, though who in their right mind wouldn't have assumed that? Anecdotes about Black Jack Ketchum, a bad guy eventually arrested and executed... where did that come from? What did he have to do with the Dust Bowl? Oh, he was around for some of the early dusters. But he was dead (not really a spoiler and I don't care anyway) before Black Sunday, so...

And let's not forget the subtitle here, shall we? "The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl". Black Jack didn't survive. He didn't die at the hands of the Dust Bowl, but he also didn't survive. Nor did the elderly woman whose name I can't remember, or her great-grandbaby who died like the same day or something. They died because of the Dust Bowl, which is tragic. But... well, they're not quite survivors, are they?

I realize I'm just splitting hairs here. Maybe all of this wouldn't bother me if the rest of the book was written well. Repetitious sequences like alternating "Coughed and cried, coughed and cried" and "Cried and coughed, cried and coughed" - was enough to drive me absolutely batty. When it wasn't overwritten, the text was bland.

I feel bad saying this book was merely "okay", but that's exactly how I felt about it. The Dust Bowl, the Great Depression, the migrations (See The Grapes of Wrath) are all very important issues in American history. They are all very serious, sobering, dramatic subjects. Guess what? Writing about them doesn't have to be melodramatic to prove that point. In fact, doing so almost detracts from the subject entirely.

That's a shame.

My rating is based entirely on the writing, not the subject matter, so don't go and get your panties all in the twist and accuse me of being heartless and Grinch-y. Egan made a fascinating story sound boring. That takes skills.

Shame on the NBA for this one. ...more

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Sep 04, 2013 Lise Petrauskas rated it liked it

Shelves: aint-that-america, non-fiction, history

The Worst Hard Time was exceedingly painful, but I'm glad I stuck it out. It surprises me how little I knew of the real details of this period in America's history. I consider myself an environmentalist and I'm also a girl of the western states, so it's an oversight on my part that I'm glad to have corrected.

The story of the Dust Bowl has all the raw materials for a tragedy worthy of Shakespeare or the Greeks, both on an individual level and a political level, there is astounding hubris, cruelty ...more

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Jan 19, 2018 Heather(Gibby) rated it really liked it

A gripping account of the history of the settling of the Great Plains of America, and how greed, poor decisions, and bad luck combined to create the environmental disaster that lead to great starvation and migration out of this area.

Parts of this book are very disturbing, but a lot of it is told with great heart, especially when individual challenges and set-backs are examined.

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Apr 10, 2009 Sarah rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 5-stars, non-fiction

Reading this book, the word that came most often to mind was “apocalypse.” I’d heard of the dust bowl but never realized what a harrowing, long-lasting catastrophe it was. The descriptions of the storms, which could as easily have been dubbed dirt storms, were frightening and fascinating. They were like “coarse hair,” and the “inside of a dog.” The color and texture of the rolling, thousand-feet-high clouds crackle, packed as they were with static electricity. The scale of the storms was giganti Reading this book, the word that came most often to mind was “apocalypse.” I’d heard of the dust bowl but never realized what a harrowing, long-lasting catastrophe it was. The descriptions of the storms, which could as easily have been dubbed dirt storms, were frightening and fascinating. They were like “coarse hair,” and the “inside of a dog.” The color and texture of the rolling, thousand-feet-high clouds crackle, packed as they were with static electricity. The scale of the storms was gigantic, reaching at times as far as the east coast.

Structurally I thought the book was put together expertly – the overall frame of the environment and the times, led along by the stories of individuals. The fragments of one Nebraska man’s diary worked a sad, anecdotal magic. I enjoyed the human stories, and that of the ravaged grassland, the national challenge, and the snapshot of FDR. The slice of history was also fascinating. Deep in the depression, the border of California was dotted with signs telling job-seekers to turn back. The signs in Dalhart, too, telling black people not to “let the sun go down” on them seem shocking now, but were surely typical of the 1930s.

The subtitle of the book is “the untold story of those who survived the the great American dust bowl.” Ok, I hate the expression “the untold story” and to be honest a lot of people did not survive, they died trying to stick it out. But it’s easy to understand what kept some there: land and homes they owned, family, the “the devil we know.”

The atmosphere is claustrophobic. There is nothing green. The idea that dust could infiltrate your home despite shut windows and wet sheets draped over doors is suffocating. I’d never heard of “dust pneumonia,” and the scene in which they cut open a dead animal to find its stomach stuffed with sand/dust/dirt brings the danger of this air home. People die of dust, they go blind, they go mad.

This book gets five stars because it blew my mind. Just when you thought things couldn’t get more miserable, they did. To be fair, I don’t know if I should credit the writer or the storms themselves, but the writer certainly conveyed the phenomenon and its enormity to me. Sometimes I wondered if it had to be so dramatic. Sometimes I wondered how he resisted being more dramatic.
...more

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