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A review by cdlindwall
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
4.0
Every person who doesn't believe in the importance of environmentalism should read this book — every person who think humans don't have the ability to shift the natural balance of the ecosystem and set off a cataclysmic chain of events. The Dirty 30s was America's worst natural disaster, and it was man-made. Fool-hardy farmers didn't know any better and likely wouldn't have believed warnings if they'd heard them. They stripped the land, then left it, and let it blow. It took only a few decades to destroy an ecosystem that had taken tens of thousands of years to perfect. Like that, gone.
We forget that nature doesn't care about our Manifest Destiny — America's right to plow and farm and reap and conquer everywhere we possibly can. Across the West and through the golden grass of the Midwest. Nature is bigger than our plans. It certainly is indifferent to our plans.
Egan does a wonderful job explaining to an East Coast, 21st-century reader how the catastrophe happened. He also vividly describes what it's like to live in Oklahoma during the Great Depression and be literally choking and dying on the swirling, ubiquitous dust in your air. It's something that's hard to grasp for most of us. In fact, few even know what caused America's worst natural disaster in the "Dirty 30s." Some don't even know it happened.
So for that, Egan won me over. Creative non-fiction is my favorite — taking an historical event and presenting it to me with beautiful narratives and prose. He does that well. I do think it got a bit repetitive in the second half. I wish Egan had taken the last third of the book and told more about how the "Dust Bowl" did eventually become a habitable place — the transition from the 30s to now.
I was impressed, though, with the number of creative ways Egan described the dust. I'll share a few:
"...layers of dust, one wave after the other, an aerial assault..."
"...this anemic, fly-away ground..."
"...these blowing prairie states..."
"...the nation's midsection became a sandbox."
"...the dreary routine of life in a dusty fog."
"...a fall without color, just as it had been a spring and summer of grey."
"...the galloping flatlands..."
"...the black funnel dancing..."
"...the moving mountain of dirt..."
"...the blackness..."
He's a great writer and an even better reporter. This book works beautifully as an historical recounting of an epically hard time in American life. But it also serves wonderfully as a modern warning about the balance of nature and the risk we take when disturbing it. If you aren't familiar with this time period, this book is a great introduction. I also recommend viewing the photographs/watching the documentary mentioned in Egan's book, as they will help bring to life some of the scenes he describes.
We forget that nature doesn't care about our Manifest Destiny — America's right to plow and farm and reap and conquer everywhere we possibly can. Across the West and through the golden grass of the Midwest. Nature is bigger than our plans. It certainly is indifferent to our plans.
Egan does a wonderful job explaining to an East Coast, 21st-century reader how the catastrophe happened. He also vividly describes what it's like to live in Oklahoma during the Great Depression and be literally choking and dying on the swirling, ubiquitous dust in your air. It's something that's hard to grasp for most of us. In fact, few even know what caused America's worst natural disaster in the "Dirty 30s." Some don't even know it happened.
So for that, Egan won me over. Creative non-fiction is my favorite — taking an historical event and presenting it to me with beautiful narratives and prose. He does that well. I do think it got a bit repetitive in the second half. I wish Egan had taken the last third of the book and told more about how the "Dust Bowl" did eventually become a habitable place — the transition from the 30s to now.
I was impressed, though, with the number of creative ways Egan described the dust. I'll share a few:
"...layers of dust, one wave after the other, an aerial assault..."
"...this anemic, fly-away ground..."
"...these blowing prairie states..."
"...the nation's midsection became a sandbox."
"...the dreary routine of life in a dusty fog."
"...a fall without color, just as it had been a spring and summer of grey."
"...the galloping flatlands..."
"...the black funnel dancing..."
"...the moving mountain of dirt..."
"...the blackness..."
He's a great writer and an even better reporter. This book works beautifully as an historical recounting of an epically hard time in American life. But it also serves wonderfully as a modern warning about the balance of nature and the risk we take when disturbing it. If you aren't familiar with this time period, this book is a great introduction. I also recommend viewing the photographs/watching the documentary mentioned in Egan's book, as they will help bring to life some of the scenes he describes.