The worst hard time

In his book, “The Worst Hard Time”, writer Timothy Egan writes about the horrible days known as the Dust Bowl and the suffering of the people during the Great Depression. Egan does so by telling the stories of survivors that witnessed it which most of them were children at the time or farmers.
The dust bowl was caused by a severe drought that was caused by winds picking up the soil farmers would leave behind due to not rotating their crops. Warnings against the soil eroding were ignored. Dust storms eventually whipped across the Great Plains; choking and killing people and animals. Eventually the dust storms reached populated cities like New York and Washington D.C. Warnings against the soil eroding were ignored. "God didn't create this land around here to be plowed up," said Melt White, a teenager during the Dust Bowl. He also has a whole chapter for chapter for Don Hartwell, a farmer who kept a journal during the worst of the drought years. “Don Hartwell tightened his grip on the land, holding on to it because he had nothing else.” He was greatly determined to stay in the land even with everything coming down.
The book has lucid descriptions of the event and sometimes Egan uses too many details which tires the reader out in the first couple of pages in the book. He describes the storm with detail such as, "It was not a rain cloud. Nor was it a cloud holding ice pellets. It was not a twister. It was thick like coarse animal hair; it was alive. People close to it described a feeling of being in a blizzard — a black blizzard, they called it — with an edge like steel wool." It’s remarkable though how he can tell a tale with such detail that many aren’t alive to tell. Egan tells the personal stories of families that moved in ...

... middle of paper ...

...r into it. Egan uses many rhetorical devices that help the story standout such as the rhetorical triangle in the beginning chapters and hyperboles in the middle of the book. But Egan himself with redundant details and some bias towards the homesteaders. (which he depicts as the villains of the book).
As stated above, the book has flaws with its redundant details and unenjoyably tone but it does interest the reader with the recorded stories of others who were alive during the Dust Bowl. Combining the disastrous events of both the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression (while also including rhetorical devices and the rhetorical triangle) The Worst Hard Time is one of the greatest books on America’s history. You can tell Egan is very engaged in his work with and the content in the book portrays his passion. He leaves you wondering when the next “Worst Hard Time” will be.