The Wind (Barker Texas History Center Series) [Paperback]

Dorothy Scarborough (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1979 | Series: Barker Texas History Center Series

The Wind stirred up a fury among Texas readers when it was first published in 1925.

This is the story of Letty, a delicate girl who is forced to move from lush Virginia to desolate West Texas. The numbing blizzards, the howling sand storms, and the loneliness of the prairie all combine to undo her nerves. But it is the wind itself, a demon personified, that eventually drives her over the brink of madness.

While the West Texas Chamber of Commerce rose up in anger over this slander of their state, Dorothy Scarborough's depiction of the cattle country around Sweetwater during the drought of the late 1880s is essentially accurate. Her blend of realistic description, authentic folklore, and a tragic heroine, bound together by a supernatural theme, is unique in Southwestern literature. As a story by and about a woman, The Wind is a rarity in the early chronicles of the cattle industry. It is also one of the first novels to deal realistically with the more negative aspects of the West.

Sylvia Ann Grider's foreword reports on the life and work of Dorothy Scarborough, a native Texan and a well-respected scholar.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: University of Texas Press (1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0292790368
• ISBN-13: 978-0292790360
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,507,557 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Classic West Texas melodrama. . ., June 6, 2004

By 

Ronald Scheer "rockysquirrel" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wind (Paperback)

This is a classic work of Texas fiction that is memorable for the storm of controversy it caused when it was published anonymously in 1925. Set in the 1880s, it tells the story of a fragile 18-year-old girl from Virginia, suddenly orphaned and left penniless, who goes to live with her cousin, a rancher somewhere west of Sweetwater, in West Texas. Dreamily romantic and totally unprepared for the rigors of life on the plains, she struggles unsuccessfully with deprivations of body, mind, and spirit that only the toughest frontier settlers are fit to confront.

It's her misfortune to arrive in the middle of a terrible drought that parches the treeless land and under the relentless wind turns it into a churning dustbowl. As for many who first settled on the plains, it is the constant wind that is her undoing. Under its maddening influence, her life takes one devastating turn after another, until the story ends in a melodramatic climax.

A reader today may find the melodrama somewhat over the top. A film was made of the story, starring Lillian Gish, and one can easily imagine the sorts of silent movie histrionics used to represent the critical scenes in the story. However, there are pleasures of another kind to be had in the novel, specifically the characters of two enjoyably drawn cowboys, Lige and Sourdough, who both fall in love with the young heroine. Their competition for her affection and their colorful use of the English language brighten these pages considerably.

The author grew up in West Texas, and there's a great deal of the authentic in her writing. The humor and the indomitable fortitude of her frontier characters seem based on observation of the real thing. She's clearly writing from firsthand experience when she describes the landscape, the weather, and the grinding demoralization of year after year of drought. And she captures in detail the impact of sun, sand and wind on the physical appearance of both men and women. It's an anti-romantic vision that Larry McMurtry revived 35 years later in his early novels of ranch life, "Leaving Cheyenne" and "Horseman, Pass By."

This book is currently out of print, but a copy of it surely belongs on any bookshelf dedicated to the literature of the American West.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Underappreciated Regional Author's Finest Work, February 27, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Wind, The (Library Binding)

Dorothy Scarborough is an underrated regional author of enormous talent. Though "The Wind" has been out of print for twenty-two years, it is well worth the search for a copy. Letty, a naive nineteen-year-old orphan, travels to Sweetwater, Texas in search of a new life with an uncle. Her hardships in the harsh, isolated Texas desert brought disfavor upon author Dorothy Scarborough by Texas state public relations-minded officials. Letty faces a cruel home, a hasty marriage and severe isolation and loneliness. Letty's mental state deteriorates to the depths of murder and implied suicide. A 1920's silent film of the same name, although not true to the novel's original plot, is an interesting companion to the book.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars City girl in Texas, finding her way, December 7, 1998

By 

Barbara Yerby "barbarayerby" (Decatur, Texas USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Wind (Barker Texas History Center Series) (Paperback)

A spoiled city girl of 17 finds herself at the mercy of the weather and west Texans. It gets to be too much for her to bear. The 1928 movie with Lillian Gish differs from the book in the ending.One of my favorite stories of a woman finding her way in the world and how she attempts to deal with reality.An excellent source of literature and movie comparison for someone doing a paper!