Peculiar Savage Beauty
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
2018 Arizona Book of the Year
The black blizzard is a formidable enemy. The furious storm blots out the sun, chokes the life from both man and beast. When RJ Evans finds herself engulfed in inky blackness and holed up beneath her Model AA Ford on an isolated plains road – dirt caked beneath her fingernails, skin flecked with blood drawn by the biting dust – she has no idea this trial won’t be her toughest.
What awaits her in the small farming town of Vanham, when she begins her job as a geologist for the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, is even more daunting. Drought and over-plowing by men determined to conquer the land have turned the once-lush plains into a brutal twin of the Sahara. Headstrong and intent on healing the earth through conservation farming, RJ must somehow find her place in a tight-knit community that welcomes neither women in authority nor changes to their way of life.
She befriends Woody, an autistic savant born in an era long before any medical diagnosis would explain his peculiar ways and unique talents. The locals label the young man an idiot and RJ an armchair farmer. Yet, in each other, they see so much more.
Beating back the dust is a daily battle in a war for the land. It is a clash that creates unlikely alliances. As RJ learns she must rely on her adversaries if she is to survive the dangers of the Dust Bowl, she also grows to realize that she – like the land itself – is in desperate need of love and healing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The heart of McCann's gripping, atmospheric novel, set in 1934 during the Dust Bowl, is an intrepid government geologist, Rosa Jean "RJ" Evans, who returns to her drought-stricken hometown to help farmers stop soil erosion and restore the land. The environmental devastation and human suffering are shocking to RJ, yet many of the residents of Vanham, Kans., do not welcome the interference of a government scientist, or a woman at that. RJ sets up soil experiments, gradually persuading some farmers to adopt her methods, while easing into friendships with brilliant, misunderstood Woody, who becomes her assistant, and Ethel, the owner of the local diner. RJ also falls in love with Harvey Clay, who wants to marry RJ and move to Wichita for a new life, yet he forces her to choose between marriage and her career. The dust storms depicted are graphic and terrible, none more so than the "black blizzard," based on 1935's Black Sunday. McCann is especially good at using the ever-present dust gritty, dirty, seeping into homes, and infecting characters with "dust pneumonia" to depict its devastation on humans, livestock, crops, and homes. McCann's Dust Bowl saga meshes a seminal event in American history with a suspenseful plot and insightfully etched characters. (BookLife)