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Summary
Summary
From Paulette Jiles, the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of Enemy Women, comes a poignant and unforgettable story of hardship, sacrifice, and strength in a tragic time--and of a desperate dream born of an undying faith in the arrival of a better day
Oil is king of East Texas during the darkest years of the Great Depression. The Stoddard girls--responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea--know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks; that is, when he's not spending his meager earnings at gambling joints, race tracks, and dance halls. And in every small town in which the windblown family settles, mother Elizabeth does her level best to make each sparse, temporary house they inhabit a home.
But the fall of 1937 ushers in a year of devastating drought and dust storms, and the family's fortunes sink further than they ever anticipated when a questionable "accident" leaves Elizabeth and her girls alone to confront the cruelest hardships of these hardest of times. With no choice left to them, they return to the abandoned family farm.
It is Jeanine, proud and stubborn, who single-mindedly devotes herself to rebuilding the farm and their lives. But hard work and good intentions won't make ends meet or pay the back taxes they owe on their land. In desperation, the Stoddard women place their last hopes for salvation in a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left . . . and on the back of late patriarch Jack's one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe. And Jeanine, the fatherless "daddy's girl," must decide if she will gamble it all . . . on love.
Author Notes
Paulette Jiles is a poet, memoirist, and novelist, born in 1943, and based in San Antonio, Texas. She is the author of a memoir entitled, Cousins. Her novels include Enemy Woman, Stormy Weather, The Color of Lightning, Lighthouse Island, and News of the World.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Jiles's eloquent, engaging sophomore novel celebrates four strong women toughing out the Great Depression in the Texas dust bowl. As the book opens in 1927, Elizabeth Stoddard and husband Jack have three daughters: the pretty Mayme, the tomboyish Jeanine and the writerly Bea. Jeanine, resented for being daddy's favorite, soon becomes the novel's primary point of view. After the disgraced Jack dies in 1937, the four Stoddard women move back to the 150-acre homeplace on the Brazos River in Central Texas. Drought, hail and dust storms, land-tax debts and grinding poverty make life a struggle; radio shows, horse-racing, wildcat oil well speculation and stuttering news reporter friend Milton Brown provide diversions. Jeanine falls in love with local rancher Ross Everett; Mayme dates soldier Vernon. Visceral detail of the 1930s rancher life and the hardscrabble setting add authenticity, particularly in the characters' feel for horses. While forthright, some of the dialogue is less than believable (as when Ross compliments Jeanine on her "furious bloody purple" dress), but it serves the characters' greater-than-usual emotional bandwidth. Jiles winds this gritty saga up on the eve of WWII with a patchwork quilt's worth of hope. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Girl grows up in the Depression-era Texas dustbowl in an evocative but ultimately lackluster second novel from Jiles (Enemy Women, 2001). Jeanine is the middle daughter of Jack Stoddard, oil-field roustabout and dirt-track racehorse impresario. At age nine, she's gamely driving drunken, passed-out Dad home in his Tin Lizzie when 19-year-old Ross Everett intervenes, returning the two to Jeanine's mother Elizabeth and her sisters Mayme and Bea. Then comes the Crash, and the Stoddards move from town to town in search of oil jobs. Jack, his brain injured when he's exposed to "sour gas," descends into madness and dies in a jail cell. The women return to Elizabeth's dilapidated childhood farm. Elizabeth invests their dwindling funds in a wildcat oil well. Jeanine salvages the farm, doing all the housework and repairs, rescuing the peach orchard and clearing the land. As dust storms rage, the New Deal is born and war in Europe looms. Mayme meets a handsome soldier, and Bea scribbles pulpy stories in her journal. Jeanine finds two men mildly amusing: now-widowed rancher Ross, who buys her father's last stallion and gives her a stake in its winnings; and impish, stuttering newspaperman Milton, whose Runyonesque monologues consume way too much oxygen and page-space. Bea falls down a well, requiring expensive surgery that threatens to bankrupt the family again--unless that oil well isn't a dry hole after all. Period detail abounds, including authoritative arcana on every subject from oil and horses to windmills and roof patching. Jeanine's life, beset by one homely obstacle after another (nothing her capable hands can't handle of course), waxes anticlimactic as she approaches age 21 and resigns herself without much excitement to marriage. The characters other than Milton are utterly convincing in speech and manner, but they're adrift without a drama in which to act. If feisty Jeanine could find a vehicle with more horsepower, her return would be most welcome. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In her second novel, following the acclaimed Enemy Women (2002), Jiles proves herself an exceptional writer. This stirring story of four women--Elizabeth Stoddard and her three daughters, Mayme, Jeanine, and Bea--struggling to survive during the Depression is set against a barren Texas landscape, still suffering the effects of a long drought and devastating dust storms. The Stoddards, having followed their charming patriarch, Jack, from one oil field to another, must now cope with his death from a gas leak. His love of gambling and liquor has left them destitute; they return to their long-abandoned family farm, where they face a hefty bill for back taxes. Jack's one legacy is an underfed racehorse named Smoky Joe. Jeanine, smart and practical, is forced to sell the horse to cover their debts but takes a percentage of his winnings; meanwhile, her mom invests in a wildcat oil well. The lack of money, though, never detracts from the Stoddards' dignity. Jiles conveys their sense of self and of home in language as spare and stark as the Texas landscape. --Joanne Wilkinson Copyright 2007 Booklist
Library Journal Review
While their father was alive, the Stoddard family followed him to the booming oil towns of Texas. Then came the dust and drought of the 1930s, and the family crawled home to its abandoned farm in central Texas. To survive, Elizabeth Stoddard and her three daughters concoct two schemes that go beyond hardscrabble farming: shares in a wildcat oil well and ownership of an untrained racehorse named Smokey Joe. Told mostly from the perspective of the plucky middle sister, Jeanine, Jiles's follow-up to her highly praised debut, Enemy Women, whips up high hopes for the Stoddard family's survival and success as Jeanine matures before our eyes. Readers will be proud of her horse sense, her skills with a needle, and her determined practicality. Despite the hardships of the Great Depression, the Stoddard women do not go without love or romance. A deeply satisfying novel with wide appeal; recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 1/07; reading group guide available at www.harpercollins.com.]-Keddy Ann Outlaw, Harris Cty. P.L., Houston (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.