Book Review: ‘The Worst Hard Time’ by Timothy Egan

SHEILA ALEXANDER
Development communications coordinator

Timothy Egan deserves high praise for providing a unique look at an old story — the Dust Bowl years — in his book “The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great America Dust Bowl.”

While other books focus on those who lost their farms and left the area, Egan’s story centers on those who owned their land and stayed throughout a catastrophic agricultural disaster greater than any the U.S. has ever known.

Encouraged by the government to plant the high plains in wheat, with promises that simply turning the soil would encourage rain, the masses who settled in the West were rabid about not leaving a bit of sod unturned. Their success at following directions created an economic disaster that still scars the plains.

The statistics are numerous and interesting, but the back cover blurb promised a much better read: “... John Steinbeck gave voice to those who fled the Dust Bowl in his masterpiece, ‘The Grapes of Wrath.’ This is the story of those who stayed and survived …”.

Egan gives minute snapshots of individuals without the depth of Steinbeck’s novel. Just as Egan begins to interest you in a family, he intersperses 30 pages of facts before returning to another fleeting look at the insider’s story.

It is disappointing in that aspect, but not without great value. Those who have a deep interest in the Depression years will treasure the facts and views this perspective provides about “black blizzards” and “dust pneumonia” that nearly broke the spirit of families who struggled to stay on the land, convinced life would get better.
The overwhelming magnitude of dealing with fine silt that blew all day long, suffocating cattle and infants, creeping into homes to cover everything, fouling the water and destroying car engines is nearly palpable.

“The Worst Hard Time” is available for $14.95 in paperback at the Sweet Briar Book Shop.