Orphans of the Living
A debut novelist presents a fictionalized account of her mother’s brutally difficult and often heartbreaking upbringing as the youngest child in a family of destitute sharecroppers during the early 20th century. Nora Mae’s father dreams of riches from agrarian land schemes in an epic tale of the Stovall family that spans from Arizona to Mexico, to Montana, to cotton sharecropping in Mississippi, to the Central Valley in California.
Told from multiple points of view, the writing reaches emotional depths in exploring a mother’s stresses over raising nine children in abject poverty and the waning of her husband’s hopefulness and noble sensibilities under the crushing effect of economic devastation. For the youngest of nine, Nora Mae, survival is the only realistic goal, as she bonds with older, previously abandoned brother Glen to find her solitary path inside the family, as suggested by the title. Scenes are set well with period detail, and race relations of the time are explored in moving scenes. Approaches to pursue overburdened and undercompensated workers’ rights are also explored.
The author notes “This book is a work of fiction. It’s also true.” In this sense, she taps into her mother’s family history for inspiration, with an unsparing look that seems to come from deep inside her at the hardships and tragedies of the agrarian working class based on experiences of real people. An excellent read for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds and John Steinbeck’s classic tale of displaced tenant farmers during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath.
