House of Earth, a previously unpublished novel by folkartist Woody Guthrie, has been released this month by Infinitum Nihil (Johnny Depp’s publishing imprint with HarperCollins). This novel was finished by Guthrie some 66 years ago. It was never published and though the reasons are not clear why Guthrie didn’t follow through with the publishing process, it is clear that he did want this for the public <his design for the book was that it be turned into a film. He sent it to a producer, but it never panned out>. Maybe this was disheartening? The truth of why this was never published is unknown and any reasons given would just be conjecture.
The good: the book was found, it was published, you can read it.
The book is divided into four chapters and is about 200 or so pages. There is also a lengthy intro written by Douglas Brinkley & Johnny Depp {I would recommend reading this last, as an afterward}. Something I really loved about this book was the art, which is all pulled from Woody Guthrie’s stacks. The cover is beautiful and the little pieces that introduce the book and close it are simple and cool. Each chapter has a print as well. All really nice looking. Props to the people involved with the books layout (other than that misplaced afterward, but that’s easy to fix).
House of Earth has the feel of those freaky beats poets, but with a hillbilly tongue. The story follows a couple, Tike & Ella May Hamlin, in their struggle to live in the dusty Texas panhandle as sharecroppers. The land is harsh and their house is a wooden, creaky, rotten, sun and wind beaten shack. Tike and Ella May dream of a better life. A life with a piece of land they can call their own. A life with a house that is true and strong, one that will keep the critters and dust and wind and snow and everything else out. They lay their hope in the dream of an adobe house. A house of earth.
I liked this book a lot. The story is compelling, and it rips at the heart fibers. It made me feel anxiety ridden over the main character’s plight. Though it was written in ’47, it is not unrelatable. With so many people in debt today, so many forced out of their lives by natural disaster, and the capitalist machine still in fine form, this novel speaks easy and with force.
This book is an inoculation from the past.
<I think it’s the right time for this aged injection>.
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