Peculiar Savage Beauty by Jessica McCann

 1934. Rosa Jean graduates with Masters in Geology and secures a government position at Soil Erosion Department in Vanham, Kansas, where she is from. On her way there, she experiences her first duster. As the wind and dust rage, you can’t tell if it’s day or night.

As she continues her way, she sees what time did to the surrounding land as well as the effects of 1929 market crash, which plunged the wheat prices. It seemed like coordination, when rain stopped, too. Most fields failed to produce. Drought was part of the Great Plains, but the true reason, she learned in college, was the man controlling the land, instead of working in harmony with it.

Once, settled in Vanham, another storm comes. She is told, it’s a sandstorm this time. Then another duster comes, and another, and another.

There are other obstacles. She isn’t that welcomed as a woman in man’s field. When a hundred-pound bag of seed needs to be loaded on the track, she is told to help herself; a woman of petite size.

Afterwards, she learns why the men of this land are bitter about the auctions, and the one she took part in on behalf of government. She tries to make amends with explaining what needs to be done to avoid erosion. Convincing men who think they know their land is not an easy task.

With evocative writing, the story offers an interesting history lesson of the dust bowl and the struggle of the Great Plains, because of the land erosion, what failed and what needed to be done. It is a story of sad moments balanced with hope.

Inspired by actual historical events, it explores the relationship between a man and a land. What men did to land unknowingly and how it brutally affected them. It is also a story of a woman who is the first one at her university to graduate in Geology. Her hometown is not ready for an educated woman, which brings her journey to win them over in common goal.

P.S. Also, by this author – All Different Kinds of Free

Released in 2018

Publisher: Perspective Books