From a Rocky Hillside

I have been away on vacation and will try to get back around soon and catch up with folks. I’ll tell you more about my travels later, but let me catch up on my readings…

Karen Russell, The Antidote A Novel 

(New York: Alfred P. Knopf, 2025), 422 pages, some photos and notes. (Audible, 16 hours and 55 minutes). 

This novel is set in Uz, Nebraska in 1935, at the height of the Dust Bowl. The story takes place between two well-known events, the Black Sunday dust storm and the flooding of the Republican River. The town of Uz is fictional, borrowed from the home of Job in the Bible. The book of Job comes up frequently in the novel as the people in this town struggle and many leave in response to the drought and dust. Job ends with God speaking through a whirlwind. In The Antidote, near the end, a tornado sweeps through Oletsky’s property. While God doesn’t speak from the storm, the message is clear. 

Russell tells the story of Uz through several characters. There is Harp Oletsky, a bachelor farmer whose crop seems immune to the dust storm destroying everyone else’s fields. Harp lives with his niece, Asphodel Oletsky, an orphan high schooler, who loves basketball.   In town, there is a Prairie Witch, later identified as Antonina Rossi. She can take memories from people, saving them from their unpleasant past. The Sheriff uses her skills at the jail, which in time we learn is a means to cover up misconduct. Her talents allow people to forget the past and avoid being haunted by their deeds.  Another important character is Cleo Allfrey, an African American woman sent by the government to photograph the disaster on the plains. When her camera is stolen, she buys another which has special abilities she only learns after the film is developed. The camera captures views from the past. And finally, we have Harp’s scarecrow and the Sheriff’s cat. Both observe and become involve in that which happens

During the months in which the novel takes place, the Uz girls’ basketball team, even after their coach leaves, wins the state championship.  The sheriff is in a political race. He thinks he has the election in hand because he solved a serial killing of women in Nebraska, one in which the killer places a rabbit foot on the victim’s body. But then, the killings continue and the man convicted of the murders sits on death row with people wondering if he was guilty. 

When circumstances bring together Harp, the prairie witch, the photographer, and his niece, things come to a head. They learn not only the truth of the evil sheriff, but also of their past. Harp retrieves his father’s memories, long stored with an old witch of another town. Learning the truth of his past bothers him. He knows how his family who were forced out of Poland by the Germans in the late 19^th Century, But now he’s haunted for they did the same thing, taking land from Native Americans. They also learn of modern racial tensions with African Americans.  Harp envisions a new society addressing the evils of the past. Of course, this vision almost leads to Harp’s murder by those who want to hold on to a mythological view of pioneer families taming the wilderness. 

This is a great book which I almost gave up on because of the supernatural elements in the story. I’m glad I stuck with it. Russell uses language beautifully. Her work raises questions as to how we remember the past and what role it plays in the present. She also provides insight into racism. In an age in which we want to sanctify the past mythologies, she reminds us of that we’d like to forget, and the loss it will be if the past can be whitewashed.  There are other themes, too, within the novel including how people handle loss and face difficulties.  I recommend it and hope to discuss the book with others who have read it. 

For those interested in a non-fiction book on the Dust Bowl, I highly recommend Timothy Egan’s The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl.

Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz 

(Crown: New York, 2020), 584 pages with sources and index.

May 1940 was the worse time to be asked to convene a new government. The nation was at war. British soldiers sent to Norway to fight against the German invaders needed to be extracted. The British Expeditionary Force in Europe faced a German onslaught through the Low Countries, as they attempted to outflanking the French and British armies.  And it kept going downhill as France fell back and many, but not all, of the British soldiers on France soil found themselves with their backs to the sea at Dunkirk. And then France surrendered and the United Kingdom had to deal with their large and modern navy in the hands of the Germans. Shortly after France fell, the bombings began. Tragedy filled Winston Churchill’s first year as Prime Minister.

Larson focuses on this year in his usual detailed style, drawing on the life not only of Churchill, but others around him. We learn about the capable men, such as Lord Beaverbrook, whom he recruited to increase aircraft production. We also learn about his enemies such as Herman Goring, the head of the German Luftwaffe and Rudolf Hess, who attempted an unusual means of diplomacy.  

The reader is also drawn into Churchill’s family and personal life. We learn about struggle with personal finances, his unique relationship with his wife, and the struggle with his children. Churchill had many weird habits such as regular baths from which he worked as the bathroom became crowded with advisors and secretaries. Like Stalin, he also seemed unable to sleep till long after midnight. He enjoyed good food and drink, but he also felt a connection to the people of the nation. Often, after a major bombing, Churchill visited the burning cities and connected with those suffering. This endeared him to the nation. 

Of course, Churchill needed rest and a respite from the trials he faced as a leader in war. Friends stepped in to provide him with various retreats, such as Chequers, which became his home away from home on weekends. 

The reader also learns of Churchill’s hope throughout this dark period that America would enter the war.  He kept in constant contact with American diplomats in Britain, as well President Roosevelt. But America, at this time, attempted to remain in isolation. Congress tied Roosevelt hands. The American President struggled to gain approval to provide Great Britain with old and obsolete navy destroyers through what would become the Lend-Lease act. Of course, that would change in December 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. But in 1940 and most of 1941, no one saw the attack on the horizon.  While that attack brought America into the war, the German attack on Russia in June of 1941 helped reduce the pressure on the British Isles. 

This book provides an interesting history lesson, reminding Americans World War 2 started over two years before Pearl Harbor. The book should also provide thoughtful readers a warning of the danger of American isolationism. 

Kyle Meyaard Schaap, Following Jesus in a Warming World: A Christian Call to Climate Action 

(Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2023), 200 pages including notes. 

I heard Meyaard-Schaap at the Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University in April and picked up his book right afterwards.  Coming from a conservative Christian background, he takes on the evangelical wing of Protestantism for ignoring the issues of environmentalism. He even challenges this attitude as failing to live up to their “pro-life” rhetoric.  

Much of the book involves Meyaard-Schaap recalling the “Big Story” of scripture. Moving from Genesis to Revelation, he interprets the Bible as God’s love story for the world. He challenges, with scripture, those who believe God will destroy this world and create a new one. As he points out the passage at the end of Revelation about a new heaven and earth should be translated as a restored heaven and earth. The word used here isn’t the same word we might use for a newly built house. Instead, John in Revelation uses kainos, a word implying that God doesn’t start over but restores his masterpiece (page 59). Just as the world is transformed, so will we. We see this promise in Paul as well as in Revelation. 

Another area of scripture which Meyaard-Schaap focuses is on the meaning of “good news.” He makes the case that Jesus’ message of hope is for the poor in the world, who face the blunt of challenges with climate change. This is true in our own country as the poor often live in the most dangerous places such as next to freeways with exhaust or by chemical plants which spews pollution. But such a crisis becomes greater by those living in places where sea level rise creates a life-threatening challenge. This is another reason for us to be concerned about the environment and pollution. 

In addition to providing reasons for Jesus’ followers to be concerned over climate change, Meyaard-Schaap provides ways that individuals and groups of Christianns can become involved in the debate. He encourages others to join in telling stories of the dangers and of redemption. Finally, he encourages us to be joyful even amidst the tragedy around us. After all, God loves this world and those of us in it, which is indeed good news. 

Tony Horwitz, Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War 

(New York: Henry Holt, 2011), 365 pages including notes, indexes, and photos. (Audible, 11 hours and 5 minutes). 

This book sat on on my TBR pile for a while. Reading Horwitz’s wife book on his death brought the book back to my attention. Unlike most of Horwitz’s books I’ve read, this book is void of humor. The books I’ve read by Horwitz (Confederates in the Attic, One for the Road, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, and Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide), he travels to learn about history and places. While the subject matter may not be very funny, his encounters as he travels can be funny and delightful. With Midnight Rising, he sticks to writing straight history as an academic exploring what some suggest is America’s first homegrown terrorist and others saw as a well-meaning but misguided fighter to end slavery. 

John Brown was a complicated man.  Coming from a strict Calvinist background, he broke with his father’s pacifist views and later moved to Kansas just for the purpose of fighting the spread of slavery. Steeped in the Old Testament stories, he saw himself as a modern-day Gideon, leading a small group of freedmen and slaves to strike a blow against the slave economy of the South. I was amazed Brown had pondered his vision of an insurrection starting in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) for so long. He even discussed his plan with many other people including Frederick Douglass. While Douglass desired an end to slavery, he felt Brown’s plan foolish and refused to join him. 

But Brown and his sons were gained some support, both from northern abolitionists who financed his operation and a few followers who joined in the raid. They set up in a house in Maryland, north of the city and scouted out the city and countryside before they began their campaign. Many of those who joined Brown knew they would likely give their lives to the cause. Ironically, within Harpers Ferry lived many free blacks. The first death at the railroad bridge at the beginning of the raid was a free black who worked for the railroad.  Brown was able to surprise Harpers Ferry, but the raid began to quickly fall apart as townsfolks took up arms and fought back. Brown and most of his men found themselves pinned down in a firehouse. Their capture came when a contingent of Marines under the command of Robert E. Lee rushed the building. Wounded, Brown was tried while resting on a cot in the courtroom.  Brown and several of his men were executed for their role in the attempted rebellion in nearby Charlestown.  Before his death, Brown predicted the upcoming war between slaveholding and free states, which erupted in 1861. 

This book provides a good study into Brown’s plans and the fatal attack in 1859 in Harpers Ferry.  The next time I visit the town, I will have a better understanding of what happened there so long ago. While the fire house still stands, much of the industrial machinery was removed during the Civil War, leaving the sleepy town without evidence of its industrial past.