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Harper
February 2013
On Sale: February 5, 2013
288 pages
ISBN: 0062248391
EAN: 9780062248398
Kindle: B008QY1JC0
Hardcover / e-Book
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Fiction Family Life
Finished in 1947 and lost to readers until now, House of Earth is Woody Guthrie's only fully realized novelβa powerful portrait of Dust Bowl America, filled with the homespun lyricism and authenticity that have made his songs a part of our national consciousness. It is the story of an ordinary couple's dreams of a better life and their search for love and meaning in a corrupt world. Tike and Ella May Hamlin struggle to plant roots in the arid land of the Texas Panhandle. The husband and wife live in a precarious wooden farm shack, but Tike yearns for a sturdy house that will protect them from the treacherous elements. Thanks to a five-cent government pamphlet, Tike has the know-how to build a simple adobe dwelling, a structure made from the land itselfβfireproof, windproof, Dust Bowlβproof. A house of earth. Though they are one with the farm and with each other, the land on which Tike and Ella May live and work is not theirs. Due to larger forces beyond their controlβincluding ranching conglomerates and banksβtheir adobe house remains painfully out of reach. A story of rural realism and progressive activism, and in many ways a companion piece to Guthrie's folk anthem "This Land Is Your Land," House of Earth is a searing portrait of hardship and hope set against a ravaged landscape. Combining the moral urgency and narrative drive of John Steinbeck with the erotic frankness of D. H. Lawrence, here is a powerful tale of America from one of our greatest artists.
 Media BuzzMorning Edition - February 5, 2013
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