Aging in the Land of Plenty by Berry Hodge

Two different people reading the same book with different experiences. In other words, if you read both these reviews-do give this important novel a chance. I found the climax to be riveting-until the last page i felt my heart pounding while the prose can get bogged down in the conversation as a reader i learned to grasp the writing and after a few days struggling to get into the book, blew through it. Their frustration leads to a feeling of recklessness that sparks the strike, and sadly, erupts in violence. They're also burdened by family and friends who have left the southwest where the jobs have gone and have ventured north to find work. A few of them have communist and union leaning notions (one even boasts of carrying a red card-small details like this really make the novel a good history lesson as well as enjoyable read), but the majority are poor, hard working people just trying to make enough money to pay their measly electricity bills. The interesting part of the novel is how organic the talk of strike is-these are not organized men and women. The mill workers are fed up, and bolstered by other mills and factories nearby in striking, they consider a strike themselves. The mill is the most important part of the town, and a new man has been introduced as the foreman-he's tasked with leaning up the mill and it has resulted in firing, replacing, and steep pay cuts. The novel reminds me of some of my favorite southern authors-and while it was written in the 1930s, besides a few changes in slang, could be written today-given our heated political and social environment.įor a simple review-the book tells the tale of a town in Washington state during the 1930s. The introduction makes references to the 'lights going out'-which is exactly how the book begins. Each chapter tends to overlap the last-but from a different perspective, so it fills in the gaps as to what may be happening elsewhere in this world (the world is quite small-the majority of the novel takes place over the course of 48 hours and is set in a mill town-the main focus being the mill).

It is repetitive-but that's something I highly enjoyed about the book. A lot of conversations, which is sometimes difficult to keep up with, and isn't the easiest read. I don't normally write reviews, however the only other review of this book is written in a way that might lead most people to avoid reading this book, which would be a shame.

Aging in the Land of Plenty by Berry Hodge