Sanora Babb experienced pioneer life in a one-room dugout,
eye-level with the land that supported, tormented and beguiled her;
where her family fought for their lives against drought,
crop-failure, starvation, and almost unfathomless loneliness.
Learning to read from newspapers that lined the dugout's dirt
walls, she grew up to be a journalist, then a writer of
unforgettable books about the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl,
most notably Whose Names Are Unknown.
The author was seven when her parents began to homestead an
isolated 320-acre farm on the western plains. She tells the story
through her eyes as a sensitive, fearless young girl who came to
love the wind, the vastness, the mystery and magic in the
ordinary.
This evocative memoir of a pioneer childhood on the Great Plains
is written with the lyricism and sensitivity that distinguishes all
of Sanora Babb's writing. An Owl on Every Post, with its
environmental disasters, extreme weather, mortgage foreclosures,
and harsh living conditions, resonates as much today as when it
first appeared. What this true story of Sanora's prairie childhood
reveals best are the values courage, pride, determination, and love
that allowed her family to prevail over total despair.
This long, out-of-print memoir is reissued with new acclaim:
"On a par stylistically and thematically with Willa Cather's My
Antonia, this is a classic that deserves to be rediscovered and
cherished for years to come." Linda Miller, English Professor at
Penn State and chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board for The
Cambridge Edition of the Letters of Ernest Hemingway.
"An unsung masterpiece in the field of American autobiography I
was completely blown away. This memoir offers an unforgettable
picture of pioneer life. Her ageless story deserves a permanent
place in our nation's literature. Arnold Rampersad, author of Ralph
Ellison: A Biography.
About the Author
Sanora Babb is the author of five books, as well as numerous
essays, short stories, and poems that were published in literary
magazines alongside the work of William Saroyan, Ralph Ellison,
Katherine Anne Porter, and William Carlos Williams. Her Dust Bowl
novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, was recently featured in the Ken
Burns documentary on The Dust Bowl.
Editorial Reviews
"A wry, affectionate but unsentimental recall of frontiering
struggles in Colorado just prior to WWI." Kirkus
"Masterly. Hers is a small song, and not grand opera. But
hearing it is a significant and salutary experience." London
Times
"The author has achieved a small miracle with this book for she
has turned hunger, poverty, loneliness and depression into
incomparable beauty by the magic of her writing." The Pretoria
News
"Babb's engaging memoir recalls a childhood spent on the harsh
and wild Colorado frontier during the early 1900s." Publishers
Weekly
Owl is novelist Babb's memories of her childhood in eastern
Colorado and Kansas before World War I. LJ's reviewer found that
Babb wrote well, "relating vividly and with fine and fond
recollection" Library Journal 12/1/70.
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