Brilliantly capturing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan 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). Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black dust blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Timothy Egan’s critically acclaimed account rescues this iconic chapter of American history from the shadows in a tour de force of historical reportage.

The dust storms that terrorized the High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since.

Since then, I have watched a couple of movies/documentaries on the subject Our Daily Bread, by King Vidor, is excellent. I thought I was quite aware of all the bad stuff we did/do to our planet and its consequences, but I honestly I had no idea how much it already affected the US almost a century ago. I asked a few Americans in their 30s, 40s, they did not know either! Hmmm.Įdit on 6/11/21: I can’t remember whom I asked, I’m even more shocked now that they would not have known about this page of American history!Įgan’s writing is amazing, and I’m looking forward to reading more of his work he’s really good at presenting the life and reaction of his characters it reads like a novel, but these are all real people, that he traced through their descendants and/or their journal on the time. A friend recommended this book so highly I had to try it, and I could hardly put it down! It reads like a novel, a horror novel, the problem is, this is plain history, plain American history.

The worst hard time review