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Material Type | Library | Call Number | Suggested Age | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Book | Searching... Cabell County Public Library | F WILLIAMS, JEANNE, 1930- | Adult | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Author Notes
Author Jeanne Williams was born in Kansas in 1930. She has written over fifty novels; some of them were published under the pen names of Jeanne Crecy, Kristian Michaels, and Deirdre Rowan. She has won four Spur Awards from the Western Writers of America and received the Levi Strauss Saddleman Award for lifetime achievement in Western literature. She currently lives in Portal, Arizona.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Four-time Golden Spur award winner Williams ( The Island Harp ) fills her Depression-era saga with gritty details and keen social observations. Laurie, 11, and her younger brother, Buddy, are left with their much-despised grandfather in Oklahoma after a dust storm kills their mother and decimates their family farm, inspiring their father to seek work in California. Determined to join him, the children hop a freight train, with Laurie posing as a boy. A series of chance encounters shapes their future. An unlikely tramp inspires Laurie with his music and gives her a harmonica; another hobo with surprising talents becomes the children's protector. And a sinister entrepreneur emerges as their nemesis. A procession of bleak shantytowns, rapacious employers and impoverished families mirrors the nation's tragedy. Eventually, the advent of WW II and oil strikes in Texas put a different twist on Laurie and Buddy's adventures, but at this point multiple subplots (battle dramas, romantic interludes) begin to spin out of control. On the whole, however, Williams's colorful story keeps the reader engaged. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Another period romance-adventure featuring a brave little gal mogging through trouble, teaming up with other down-and-outers, finding love, and making music. Unlike the primas of The Island Harp (1990) and Home Mountain (1991), this latest Williams heroine would rather blow a harmonica than pluck a harp--on the way from Kansas to Texas during the Depression of the 1930's. When Ma died in Kansas, father Ed left 13-year-old Laurie and her younger brother Buddy at the hardscrabble farm of horrid Grandpa while he set out for California to find work. Hoping to find dad--as well as the kind wayfarer who gave her courage and a harmonica and taught her traveling tunes--Laurie with Buddy hops freight trains. It's kind ``Way,'' one of the migrating jobless men, who takes the pair in hand; and when it's known that Ed has died, the three form a makeshift family, eventually augmented by Marilys, a hotel pianist. Meanwhile, swooping around like a buzzard, is W.S. Redwine, a persistent villain, owner of truck- stops, oil wells, etc. On the trek to Texas, the new family will mingle with the desperate and dispossessed, see nature's wrath and government wrongs, share food, stories, songs. And by the close, Redwine is neatly splashed away--while Laurie finds love. Williams has assembled some appealing folk reminders of those hard times, but the story route has that click-clack inevitability that brings hither slumber--or, for the following, the serenity of knowing that the journey will end on the sunny side of the street.
Booklist Review
The life of the hobo during the Great Depression is well documented in fact and fiction, but Williams' interesting twist adds contemporary relevance with a look at a family on the road. Actually, two children who have been left with their uncaring grandfather after their mother's death hop a freight car to California in search of their father. The news that he drowned saving another child leaves them bereft, but a fellow wayfarer who taught them to ride the rails offers consolation and direction. Before they finally find a real home again, the kids go from freights to shanties to an outlaw existence, pursued by a bad guy who thinks his money can buy anything--even a replacement for the son he destroyed. Packed with period detail, including folk music lyrics, Williams' romantic tale winds through the Southwest to a satisfying conclusion. ~--Denise Perry Donavin
Library Journal Review
In this novel, Williams ( Home Mountain , LJ 11/1/90) gives an unforgettable picture of the Dust Bowl years and after through the New Deal and World War II. Beginning in a dust storm in Kansas, Laurie Field, with her brothers and friends, traverses Oklahoma, California, Texas, New Mexico, Arkansas, and Louisiana, on foot, in box cars and ancient trucks, seeking a home and a place to belong. Like many poor people who share what little they have, Laurie shares her gift of song, bringing joy and encouragement to all in need. The novel is filled with details of life in America at the time. For readers who lived through the period, it will be a nostalgic trip to share with their children and grandchildren. Remember when the Saturday Evening Post cost a nickel? The Longest Road is recommended for general collections.-- Sister Avila, Acad. of the Holy Angels, Minneapolis (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
