George spends his time criticising the government, the banks and his fellow community. He recognises that something fundamental has gone wrong. Big business has stripped the little producer down, the hardworking farmer has been undermined by politicans whose support has gone straight to grain speculators and big capitalists. His rage at the banks, the government and the capitalists is only matched by his antisemitic anger at the Jews he imagines are running the banks. It's a powerful example of the contradictions that can sit in the brains of men oppressed and exploited by an anonymous system.
Hudson fleshes out her narrative with stories of what's happening elsewhere, so of which she tells narrator style, and on other occasions tells through George and his wife Rachel's reading of newspapers and listening to the radio news. Bankruptchies destroy families, farms and communities. George obsesses over prices for grain, and makes tough calculations about his possible yields and finances. Maybe next year will be the time he makes it.
His eldest daughter Lucy is just reaching adolescence and her naive, hopeful dreams carry the novel. She's the thread that links disparate stories, the eyes through which we see the frailty of the Custer's wider community. She, alongside Rachel, are also the victims of George's uncontrolled, abusive anger. He wishes that Luch had been born a boy. She desperately prays that she will change overnight so that her father will like her more and she can work on the farm. He blames the government, the banks and everyone else for the unstoppable calamity.
The community does resist. George helps collectively to fight against the selling off of a neighbour's farm, someone brought low by the banks, but helped to survive by collective resistance and refusal to allow his home and farm to be auctioned. But there's not enough of it, and as the system sinks further, the end is on the horizon for George and Rachel's farm.
This is then the story of tens of thousands of others who found in the dustbowl the inherent contradiction of a capitalist model of farming clashing with ecological realities. It was the smallest people who suffered and the richest who stood to gain the most. The crisis would only be resolved through World War and massive state investment from governments. That was in the future. It doesn't help the Custers.
There is plenty more to this remarkable novel - the story of the drifters, community spirit and solidarity and the anger of those crushed by the system, but not quite losing all hope. Tragically it's a bit of a forgotten book - perhaps because it is so bleak. But it ought to be read more widely. It's got a lot to say to the 21st century world.
Related Reviews
Holleman - Dust Bowls of Empire: Imperialism, Environmental Politics & the Injustice of 'Green' Capitalism
Erdrich - The Mighty Red
Vogel - The Farmer's Lawyer: The North Dakota 9 & the fight to save the family farm
Smith - The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood and Transformation in an American Boomtown
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