Kathleen @ Redmond Archive.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Dust Bowl , by Timothy Egan.

I thought I knew the basic facts of the Dust Bowl, but what I actually knew was the plot line for The Grapes of Wrath. I had no idea that the Dust Bowl was a man-made environmental disaster, and that most of the region's population were unable or unwilling to leave their land in the 1930's.   The Worst Hard Time set me straight on the facts, and deepened my understanding of that desperate era.

Now known as the High Plains, the region that was to gain notoriety as the Dust Bowl in the 1930's was nicknamed the Great American Desert in the 1800's.  It was an immense swath of arid, windswept, treeless land where tough grasses grew, buffalo roamed, and a few Indian tribes made their homes.  Once the Indians were forced to leave and the buffalo nearly exterminated, the U.S. government was eager to create white settlements in the area.  Railroad companies and land speculators were complicit in marketing the Great American Desert as the country's last great deal in agricultural homesteads.  New settlers plowed under millions of acres of prairie grass, then planted wheat. Several years of decent rainfall and high wheat prices in the 1920's gave them a nice return on their investment, but this success was short-lived.  Wheat prices dropped and drought returned to the Plains in the 1930's.  Since the prairie grass was gone, there was nothing to hold the soil in place.  High winds whipped up untold tons of topsoil from the land, creating blinding dust storms that killed people and livestock, buried buildings, and rendered the land unfit for farming.  Many families remained on the land, enduring tremendous losses through seven long years of drought and devastation.

Against this historical and ecological backdrop are the personal stories of several families who made the fateful decision to move to the High Plains in the early 1900's, then suffered through the dire conditions of the Dust Bowl era.  These first-hand accounts give the book an emotional power that stayed with me after I finished the last page.

The Worst Hard Time won the National Book Award and was chosen as Redmond's "One Book" for 2009.  The author, local journalist Timothy Egan, will be speaking at the Redmond Library on Thursday, December 3rd at 7 pm as the culminating event of the Redmond One Book program.  The event is free of charge and open to the public.  

And you can listen to Timothy Egan read excerpts from the book on this National Public Radio broadcast.

Lost in Place: Growing Up Absurd in Suburbia, by Mark Salzman.

Picture a 13-year-old boy, small for his age and not athletic, in the 1970's.  Are you uncomfortable yet? Meet Mark Salzman, the author of this satisfying memoir, on the cusp of adolescence.  One day Mark goes to a kung fu movie and finds his true vocation.  He decides to pursue the life of a Zen monk, with all the passion that "is possible only when you don't yet have to make a living, when you are too young to drive, and when you don't have a girlfriend."  What does that look like, exactly?  Well, his parents won't let him shave his head or quit junior high to wander the world, but he does the best he can.  He transforms the basement into his vision of a Buddhist temple, with lots of incense and knick-knacks from the Oriental gift shop in his small town.  He borrows his father's bathrobe and orders a bald-head wig from an ad in the back of a comic book.  His sister says he looks like an eggplant, but nothing distracts Mark from pursuing his dream.

Mark's dedication to kung-fu carries him through high school and dumps him out of the other side. This is the 1970's, years before there was a variety of martial arts studios in every town.  The only martial arts class he can find is taught by a man who is more drill sergeant than sifu, fueled more by alcohol and rage than by spirituality and equanimity.  Mark gives it his all anyway, and faces a chasm of loss and regret when his dream implodes.

By turns hilarious and poignant, this is an honest, big-hearted memoir.  

A romantic comedy launched from a child's gutsy reaction to prejudice? That's Elinor Lipman for you, an author who delights in handling big issues with a light touch, crisp writing, and plenty of humor.

The Inn at Lake Devine opens like so: "It was not complicated, and as my mother pointed out, not even personal: They had a hotel; they didn't want Jews; we were Jews." End of discussion. But thirteen-year-old Natalie Marx was not satisfied. Was this hotel run by Nazis? No, there were no Nazi hotels in Vermont in 1962, just some ignorant people with very bad manners. When Natalie told her father, he joked about trying again under the last name of Gentile. Natalie's parents shrugged it off and found another resort on Lake Devine for their vacation the following summer. Natalie, however, was still not satisfied. Throughout the winter she came up with deliciously sly ways to point out to the Inn's owner, a Mrs. Ingrid Berry, that her rejection of Jewish customers was unfair and illogical. Natalie made prank phone calls, wrote anonymous letters, sent newspaper clippings to make her point with Mrs. Berry.

Summer rolled around and her family stayed across the lake from the Inn. Natalie fumed. Later that summer, when she discovered that Robin, her dull bunk mate at sleepaway camp, went to the Inn every year, she finagled an invitation to go with Robin's family. Ha! Mrs. Berry could not stop Natalie from staying at the Inn after all! Natalie endured Robin's company, confirmed that Mrs. Berry was just as dreadful in person as she was in her correspondence, and rather enjoyed chatting with Mrs. Berry's sixteen-year-old lifeguard son, Nelson. By the end of the week Natalie was ready to put the incident of the Inn behind her and move on with her life.

An invitation to Robin's wedding ten years later would bring Natalie back to the Inn, with plenty of amusing, confusing and maddening complications.

Island of the Lost: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World, by Joan Druett.

Two parties are shipwrecked on the same island at the same time and never encounter each other.  One crew bands together and manages to build shelter, find food, and survive until they are rescued two years later. The crew from the other ship quickly splinters apart, allowing several men to die of starvation and others to resort to cannibalism. An implausible seaman's yarn? Implausible, yes, but this is a true story, documented by survivors' journals and other historical records.

The shipwrecks occurred in 1864 on Auckland Island, a desolate spot between Antarctica and New Zealand. The schooner Grafton had sailed from Sydney in search of mineral ore, and the ship Invercauld was en route to South America from Melbourne when they were destroyed by brutal storms. Landing on opposite ends of the island, separated by 20 miles of dense forest and impassible cliffs, and led by captains of opposite temperaments, the two crews experienced vastly different fates.

This book is a riveting survival tale, and a fascinating study of the spectrum of human behavior under dire circumstances. It would also make a great case study for MBA students: never underestimate the power of management to make or break an enterprise!