Seattlest Book Club: Baby, It's Nice Outside

Somehow, we don't expect many people to be reading Seattlest this afternoon (and honestly, if you are right now, please stop and run outside while you can). We'll use the gorgeous weather as a touchpoint for our brief initial comments on Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time: Thank god we don't live in the Midwest. That aside, so far we're enthralled with Egan's ability to craft historical figures into living, breathing characters with better depth than we find in a great deal of fiction. He's working a small bit of Lost magic on us, introducing a range of characters all drawn into small-town Dalhart--a once unpopulated stretch of the Texas-Oklahoma panhandle that experienced a sudden boom thanks to deceit and false promises from greedy land developers and a federal government desperate to settle what had been known forever as "No Man's Land."

We meet most of our protagonists on the heels of the expulsion of Native tribes, notably the Comanche, from the region. While those luring unsuspecting pioneers ("Every man his own landlord!") and the government made hyperbolic, uninformed statements by the bushel,

"The soil is the one indestructible, immutable asset that the nation possess," the Federal Bureau of Soils proclaimed as the grasslands were transformed. "It is the one resource that cannot be used up." Others, such as the cowboys who were slowly being driven out by the wheat market, knew better. Don't dig up the grass for wheat they said, their motto being "Miles to water, miles to wood, and only six inches to hell." But profits to be made from tearing up the grassland and planting wheat were too tempting, and the introduction of the tractor significantly accelerated the process. Wheat prices kept climbing and climbing--a farmer could produce a bushel for $0.40 and turn around and sell it for $1.30. No Man's Land was making millionaires out of the dirt.

So far, we're fully hooked. So to the Seattlest staffer who said, upon hearing of this month's choice, "Gee, that sounds uplifting" we can only encourage you to crack the book. It's like a truly good horror movie (no, we're not talking Saw II): you know what's coming and it isn't gonna be pretty, but Egan's meticulous research and carefully crafted characters paired with well-paced narrative make for an engaging ride. If you've gotten started, or already finished (show-off), drop your thoughts and impressions in the comments--at least with this one we don't have to be so sensitive about spoiler alerts.

Oklahoma 1935 by Flickr user Liberalmind1012.