Research: The Dust Bowl
I love when my painstaking research results in a discovery that I can share with my readers.
Sharing Great Historical Nonfiction
One of the benefits of knowing other readers of a genre you like is sharing some of the stories and series you have loved and some you are checking out. Sometimes, the most compelling stories are the real lives and events documented in historical nonfiction, which is what I have for you this month.
The Worst Hard Time
I recently read The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl (Kindle Unlimited) by Timothy Egan because I’m interested in the era. It wasn’t intended to be research, but I couldn’t help but write a story set in the dust bowl after reading the book and spending some time in the region.
Most of us probably were required to read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck for a high school or college class. The Worst Hard Time gives great perspective to the crisis that uprooted the Joads and other families.
From the publisher:
In a tour de force of historical reportage, Timothy Egan’s National Book Award–winning story rescues an iconic chapter of American history from the shadows.
The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Timothy Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, he does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, “the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect” (New York Times). In an era that promises ever-greater natural disasters, The Worst Hard Time is “arguably the best nonfiction book yet” (Austin Statesman Journal) on the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon our land and a powerful reminder about the dangers of trifling with nature.
What’s to love about this book: With many independent, personal accounts, Egan gives a clear picture of what the people suffered through in this protracted catastrophe.
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And if you enjoy westerns or mid-twentieth-century fiction, you might also enjoy Buffalo Chasers: A Wild West Show* or Missouri Compromise: A Young Trapper’s Tale* on Kindle Vella.
Cover image from the Nation Weather Service archives.