Falling to Earth
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A “poignant [and] powerful” novel about a 1920s Midwestern community in the aftermath of a devastating tornado (The New Yorker).
In March 1925, the worst tornado in the nation’s history will descend without warning on the small town of Marah, Illinois. By nightfall, hundreds will be homeless and hundreds more will lie in the streets, dead or grievously injured. Only one man, Paul Graves, will still have everything he started the day with—his family, his home, and his business, all miraculously intact.
This “absolutely gorgeous” novel follows Paul Graves and his young family in the year after the storm as they struggle to comprehend their own fate and that of their devastated town (The New York Times). They watch helplessly as Marah tries to resurrect itself from the ruins and as their friends and neighbors begin to wonder how one family, and only one, could be exempt from terrible misfortune. As the town begins to recover, the family miscalculates the growing resentment and hostility around them with tragic results, in an “extraordinarily moving” portrayal of survivor’s guilt and the frenzy of bereavement following a disaster (Financial Times).
“All the big themes are here—chance, fate, loyalty, revenge, guilt, jealousy . . . Inspired by actual events surrounding the 1925 Tri-State tornado, the worst in U.S. history, Southwood’s poignantly penetrating examination of the psychic cost of survival is breathtaking in its depth of understanding.” —Booklist (starred review)
“What’s most exciting about Southwood’s debut is her prose, which is reminiscent of Willa Cather’s in its ability to condense the large, ineffable melancholy of the plains into razor-sharp images.” —The Daily Beast
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Natural disasters are capricious and cruel, leaving some to sort through rubble while others sit comfortably by. In Southwood's fine debut, a 1925 tornado devastates the small town of Marah, Ill., touching everyone except for one family. On the day of the storm, the Graves children are at home, sick, their house untouched as the school collapses. Their father, Paul, holds tightly to a pole at his lumber yard, the only other building to escape unscathed. The book begins in chaos, introducing characters within and immediately after the storm: "There is no time to talk over what needs to be done.... People are where they are and their surroundings decide for them." This sense of haphazard destiny pervades the novel, and the omniscient third-person allows Southwood tremendous latitude to investigate the Graves family from the inside out. Paul; his wife, Mae; mother Lavinia, and even toddler Homer attempt to reconcile their suspiciously charmed status. And with reconstruction underway, the community's feelings of awe toward the lucky family gradually turns to envy as Paul sells lumber to those rebuilding, benefiting from their misfortune. Southwood grounds abstract notions of faith, community, luck, and heritage in the conflicted thoughts of her distinct and finely realized characters.
