Thoughtful people these days turn their attention to climate change, to the many damaging ways human beings abuse the environment and discover too late that they’ve created a world they cannot survive in. McCann’s haunting and heartwarming Peculiar Savage Beauty takes place in the years when the Plains states are overwhelmed by dust storms and agricultural disaster brought on by overworked soil and drought—a localized climate change that so vividly foreshadows our contemporary crisis. McCann’s evocative title is taken from Cather’s O Pioneers! “…the land wanted to be let alone, to preserve its own fierce strength, it peculiar, savage kind of beauty…” And that is one of the major themes of this deeply affecting novel—the necessity of letting the land heal and of implementing policies and techniques that allow that process to happen. But that’s a rather dry-sounding book theme. And yet, this novel is not the least bit prosaic.
Set in Kansas in 1934, the novel draws us into the life of RJ Evans, a young woman trained as a geologist and hired by the US Soil Conservation Service to run a research lab in the small town of Vanham. RJ’s history with Vanham already weighs on her psyche—and there will be plenty for her to work through as the tale enfolds. Her childhood there was snatched from her during a flu epidemic when she was removed for her safety and never saw her parents again, alive or dead. She has recurring visions of them being buried alive—not so surprising and thematically brilliant in a novel about storms that choke and bury with dust.
RJ has grown up as best she can and found a passion for her work, but Vanham is not ready for a female scientist. And RJ is not ready for the horrors of dust storms and devastation that blight the town. The headstrong woman butts heads with the town’s citizens. For a long stretch she has only one friend, an autistic young man named Woody—and it takes her a long time to figure out what a good friend he is.
The human dynamics are as stormy as the weather, but far more enjoyable—don’t look for clichés or conventional romance here. This book offers far more. The themes of love and friendship, family and trust all get subtle and sophisticated development.
The novel’s intense and rich language throws the reader into this time and place, while enriching its emotional drive. Nature lurks as a vivid character in the tale, and Nature is not the least bit pleased. If you have been living in a fuzzy state of denial about what happens when human beings throw Nature off kilter, this novel is an amazing cure for that—but you’ll be entertained and engaged through the whole cure. RJ experiences the first duster while on the road, alone. That’s a very precarious way to face an elemental superpower. “A steady, deafening rumble in the distance put to shame the worst thunder RJ had ever heard. She squinted at the horizon, at the approaching mountain of dust. Millions of fine dirt particles hurtled across the landscape in a frenetic rush, picking up still more granules that bounced off one another in a chaotic whirl. This created an electrical charge in the air that made RJ’s scalp tingle and the fine hairs on her arms stand at attention.” That’s dramatic description that pulls you in. And once you get there, you’ll find endearing if complicated characters to get to know, and you’ll be hooked. I highly recommend this trip back to Kansas.
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