Customer Reviews

Stormy Weather: A Novel (P.S.)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I loved Enemy Women, her civil war novel,so was thrilled to see she had written another book. I just finished reading and want to tell everyone who will listen to me to read Stormy Weather. The setting is harsh (1930s Texas during the drought and the Great Depression) but the writing is so lyrical and beautiful. The characters are fully developed and likeable. And the love story and tension she creates between the two is delicious agony for the reader. This was a reading experience where I had to stop often just to soak up the images she created. I rarely write book reviews, but was moved to do so for this wonderful book!

Jiles is a brilliant storyteller and a careful craftsman of detail and dialog. She tells a memorable tale here of a Texas family in the Great Depression who lose their husband and father to drink and gambling and are forced to survive without him, somehow.
Quarter horses race down a track at sunset, and the winner pelts the face of the loser with gravel and dirt from his pounding hooves. A well strikes oil, sending pieces of the rig into the sky, as onlookers scream with joy and run like hell. A tough, widower rancher courts a twenty year old girl, and when he says "you're messin with me again" it is the most romantic thing ever said.
Do not wait for the beach trip to read this one at a single sitting. I think it is one of the sleeper hits of the season- it reminds me of Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants"- another colorful story of the dark days of the 1930s. Get it now.

Lately I've read so many novels that have disappointed. Not this one! While the subject matter didn't appear to be something I'd be interested in (I'm not one for "a girl and her horse" stories), I'm glad that I listened to the reviews here and bought this book.

It's the story of 3 girls, and their mother and father set in Texas during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The father's a ner-do-well whose death leaves the mother and the girls with few options, but to retreat to a broken down ranch house and try to make a living.

Their story is moving, wry, and poignant. It's beautifully written; each word chosen precisely and carefully - a pleasure to read. The descriptions are lyrical, the characters are memorable, particularly Jeanine, the middle sister. She tells her horse Smokey Joe, that he's "a rocket," but the same could be said of her!

This memorable book is a keeper.

With all the heartbreaking precision of a Walker Evans photograph, Paulette Jiles' second novel, STORMY WEATHER, tells the story of the Stoddard women in the oil fields of East Texas during the Great Depression, their trials and their triumph. As in her deeply moving first novel, ENEMY WOMEN which was set during the Civil War, Jiles' gift for creating vibrant characters, characters we come to care about, is remarkable. And her ability to weave history, fiction, and grounded place develops a tension in the paragraphs that is staggering.

Jeanine Stoddard, something of a tomboy, charged with covering up her drunken womanizing father's misdeeds, and blamed by her sisters and mother for protecting him is the emotional heart of the novel. Her slow to develop romance with widowed rancher Ross Everett, her dogged determination to save the family farm in the face of the dust bowl, and her hopes and dreams pinned on a racehorse named Smoky Joe, is a character of such pluck and promise, such a wide-eyed, innocent embrace of the world around her that she captivates the reader.

The broadened canvas of history, geography, and popular culture, with remarkable writing about oil rigs and
horses, does not detract from or dilute the story - rather, it takes this episodic and cinematic vision and gives it a bed on which all the stories settle. There are many instances in STORMY WEATHER where the movement from public history to personal story is so seamless one recalls Doctorow's RAGTIME. The risk, of course, is that we, modern readers, invited to deconstruct this way, will bring our rich bag of reference points to that Great Depression - classic, cliched, and captured in real voices or pictures, and see whether Jiles adds anything to already crowded territory.

As she did in ENEMY WOMEN with the Civil War, so Jiles in STORMY WEATHER succeeds admirably. The dust storm that catches Jeanine and Ross out on the road is vivid, terrifying, and palpable. Descriptions of small towns, oil fields, the relationships between sisters, and the wreckage of the land in the dust bowl, are startling, clear, and graceful. And when Jeanine's scarf catches in the chain drive of her John Deere in the peach orchard, it catches in our throat as well. As in all great fiction, we come to care, and that investment in characters and their lives, enriches us. Paulette Jiles' Stoddard's, and a rich cast surrounding them, are characters we're better for knowing, better for shaking the dust off images we thought we knew and looking again.

San Antonio writer Paulette Jiles is a poet first, and it shows in her imagery and in the cadence of her sentences. They have an almost musical lilt: "A pouring wave of sheep fled down a hillside, answering some unheard call, and the dense bank of clouds to the northeast told of a windstorm to come."

"Stormy Weather" is the second novel for Jiles, after her critically acclaimed Civil War novel, "Enemy Woman." This one is a quieter novel, more tuned in to the brutal dust bowl landscape of West Texas, and to the hungry, threadbare people living through the Great Depression. They wear wedding gowns made from old draperies, and repair their roofs with crushed tin cans instead of shingles.

The story is built around Jeanine Stoddard, a strong, tomboyish young woman, who almost single-handedly carries her family through the hardest years. Jeanine is the middle daughter, beloved and trusted by her no-account father, Jack Stoddard. In the opening chapters Jeanine is a mere 9-year-old girl, but already she's driving her drunken father home from a night of hell-raising and womanizing. Jiles makes no missteps here, bringing Jeanine and the whole Stoddard clan to life along with Texas in the 1930s.

Even with World War II looming in Europe, wildcat oil strikes happen just often enough to keep the population believing in better times. The oil boom brings tragedy to the Stoddard family when Jack is killed by "sour gas," but later on the boom redeems itself when Mrs. Stoddard invests their hard-earned money in an old, dry well that a new driller reworks. The description of that well coming in are some of the best in the book. I was rattled by the earth-shaking blow-out just as if I were there, watching in awe with the otheres as the oil geysered into the blue West Texas sky.

While reading this book, I was reminded time and again of a personal favorite of mine, George Sessions Perry's "Hold Autumn In Your Hand." There are similarities beyond just the time period: problems on the land, risky ventures, a no-frills love story, and the unyielding optimism of the characters. If I were a high school teacher assigning Texas novels to my students, "Stormy Weather" would rank right at the top of the list. It's a sound, earthy novel with a soul as sweet as sugared peaches.

Some four years ago after only a scant few pages I was hopelessly and happily hooked by a stunning debut novel, Enemy Women. Written in spare, almost lyrical prose it was amazing. The author was poet and memorist Pauline Jiles who had married history and fiction to create an unforgettable story of strength, courage and love during the American Civil War.

At the time I was so impressed by this author's narrative skills that I couldn't wait to read her next book, yet I wondered if she could possibly live up to the praise soon heaped upon her debut. With Stormy Weather she has done just that and raised the bar.

Once again Ms. Jiles has taken her setting from the pages of our country's history - the Depression as endured on the merciless plains of Texas. It is a story of a family, the Stoddards, and four incredible women who not only survive but conquer.

Jeanine is the middle daughter, the one most favored by her father, and she adores him despite last night's " tormented shouting" between her parents, Elizabeth and Jack. Wise beyond their years, we read, "....Jeanine and her sister knew these were noises of pain. Their parents needed comfort." Yet, when she expresses her love to him, the reply is, "...you'll be mad at me too someday, Jenny," he said. "Before the world is done with me."

Many needed comfort in 1930s Cental Texas where life was more than hard, each day bringing a struggle for food, clothing, and shelter. However, these were proud people who believed "Hard times and collapsing marriages and heavy labor was nobody's business but their own."

Jack finds release from his failures in whiskey and gambling. An accident while working on an oil well causes him to slip from reality. A criminal act follows and he dies in jail.

Now widowed Elizabeth has no means of support nor a roof over their heads. The only option is to return to the home of her ancestors, the Tolliver farm. So they packed their belongings, Mayme, the oldest, and Bea, the youngest, doing their part. As they drove toward the farm on Highway 80 they saw cars loaded with household belongings moving from one oil field to another or to a cotton harvest. It was "People searching for work, as if it were a thing, a metal in the ground or a place."

To say the farm and house are run down is an understatement. But Jeanine is determined to make a go of it. It's their place and she'll repair the house and work the fields. Mayme eventually finds work, which brings in a small amount of money, and Bea goes to school. Bea's the reader, an intelligent child who nurtures her stray cat, and escapes from their hard scrabble life in the magazines she devours.

Elizabeth discovers that she's made of sterner stuff than she had imagined when she takes her place among men to invest in some wildcat oil drilling. As Jeanine struggles with the physical labor involved in the house and land, she also tries to come to terms with her desire for independence and two very dissimilar men who want to share her life.

Stormy Weather is a remarkable story, memorable and evocative. At its heart are the portraits of four women, each blessed with equal parts grit and grace. One more triumph for Paulette Jiles!

- Gail Cooke

Jiles has been able to paint a picture of the rugged Texas lifestyle of the early 1900's through breathtaking poetic prose. She is truly a master of language, and is able to captivate her reader with her talent. Jiles has captured the ability to describe scenes, situations, and characters in an utterly refreshing, true, rustic, uninhibited style all her own.

The characters seem to be flat, without true human souls, but I think this might have been what Jiles was going for. What is lacking in these characters, seems to further portray the way this generation of people lived with the life sucked out of them... it didn't rain for years, nothing grew, cattle literally dried up and fell over... and somehow Jiles makes these scenes beautiful like old black and white photo albums that smell like a long-lost grandmother's closet.

READ THIS NOVEL!

No other author today writes as beautifully and lyrically about history, landscape, family, men and women,the heart's drama and horses as Paulette Jiles. With eloquent prose, genuine voice, and a fast-trotting style, Jiles tells a story like she rides: with great connection, subtle cues, perfect timing and a superb understanding of the human condition. Stormy Weather is a must read. Why? Because Jiles handles the English language, her characters, and the unfolding mysteries of their lives like a master craftswoman. Profoundly and touchingly memorable. Highly recommended.

Texas in the 1930s...dust and death, strong women and huge debt. Stormy Weather journeys back in time, and it also delves deep within a family of great courage and resourcefulness. A book of optimism and eternal hope amid tragedy and defeat, this is an inspirational and enjoyable tale of one family's struggle to thrive amid desolation.

Jack Stoddard is a tall, dark and handsome scalawag with a weakness for whiskey, women and gambling. He also is partial to his middle daughter Jeanine, whom he treats like the son he always wanted but never had. Jack, who is "a good hand with horses" and "could take on any job of freighting," searches for work while America struggles through dust storms, drought and the Great Depression. After crude oil springs up from the Texas earth, Jack moves his wife Elizabeth and their daughters --- Mayme, Jeanine and Bea --- across the rugged fields of East Texas. But no matter what he tries to make his family's life better, it ends up a failure.

After Jack is "felled by sour gas," the family's situation turns from bad to worse. When Jack dies alone in a jail cell, the Stoddard women are unable to pay the ten-dollar rent they owe, and the landlord knocks on their door and turns them out in shame. With their meager yet treasured possessions carefully packed, and with Bea's cat and their father's racehorse in tow, the Stoddard women travel to Elizabeth's family's abandoned homestead. They arrive at the Tolliver farmhouse in Central Texas in the middle of the night. With its broken windows, overgrown yard and damaged roof, the Tolliver house sits on a ridge overlooking the "heavy darkness of the Brazos River valley...adrift in a sea of starlight."

It is on the Tolliver farm that the Stoddard women pull together to survive their harsh and cruel circumstances. They now have a place to live rent-free, but to continue to stay on the farm, they must first pay off the delinquent taxes that have accumulated over its years of abandonment. The family survives on cornmeal, beans and little else, but out of pride they refuse to accept relief. After settling in, the older sisters decide to work together to save the farm --- and their family.

Mayme finds a job to put food on the table and set money aside for the taxes, and Jeanine takes up sewing and begins to rebuild the farmhouse, which has suffered from years of neglect. Bea, the youngest, continues her studies and writes her stories down in her Big Chief tablet, until an accident leaves her near death and unable to walk. A county nurse comes to the farmhouse and threatens to send Bea to a home for children in Dallas because the family can't afford an operation that will help Bea walk again.

To keep the family together, Jeanine gambles on their future. She makes the decision to sell Smoky Joe (their horse) to Ross Everett, a rancher and horse breeder who has had dealings with Jack Stoddard in the past. Then, in desperation, Elizabeth invests what little money her daughters have scraped together in a wildcat oil well that could make them rich --- or ruin their hopes of carving out a better life.

STORMY WEATHER is a poignant tale about courage, hope and sacrifice in the bleakest circumstances. The historic setting, realistic dialogue and well-drawn characters make it a joy to read. But the elegant description and the graceful writing of author Paulette Jiles make it a story that is hard to forget.

--- Reviewed by Donna Volkenannt