The Children's Blizzard

By David Laskin

The winter of 1887-1888 was something else in the upper Midwest: cold and snow and cold and snow. So when a sudden warm spell arrived in January, folks relaxed and went outside and tried to enjoy the relatively balmy temperatures. This was a time to do chores, bring in hay, put the cattle in the pasture. Farmers went out to work in their shirt sleeves. Children left for school without their coats, hats and gloves.
At the time there was no national weather service. The Signal Corps was in charge of weather monitoring and forecasting and were a branch of the military. And although they had predicted falling temperatures and snow, they did not forecast a coming blizzard. And what a blizzard it was.
It happened so fast. One moment it was warm and sunny. The next it was a blast of snow, a curtain of black clouds and gale force winds. It hit the Dakotas while kids were in school. Teachers had to choose between trying to get the kids home or staying in the school house with rapidly declining fuel to heat the building and no food beyond what the students had brought from home for their lunch. Those who risked the trip often did not make it home. Their bodies were discovered later after the storm passed.
Farmers who have released their cattle to pasture risked their lives bringing them back in. Many died trying.
Some who got caught out took shelter in hay stacks but died of the cold. It was so cold that even people in their homes froze to death. Cattle died in the thousands.

Parts of this book were really interesting. The stories of the immigrants and how they came to settle in the upper Midwest and set up their homes on the prairie. The stories of the struggle to survive the cruel onslaught of the unexpected blizzard. The stories of those who survived and those who didn't. All that was quite gripping.
What wasn't so interesting was the tale of the Signal Corps and how it failed to warn of the coming and drastic weather change. The author also goes into quite detailed descriptions of how the weather works, meteorological detail that was quite boring. Worse was his description of what happens to the human body when it freezes to death, just gruesome. I mostly skipped those parts.
But even with the more boring parts, this is an amazing story of a terrible tragedy that affected people from the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. The cold front that came roaring down out of Canada pushed cold weather clear down into Texas with temperatures in some locations there falling into the teens (Fahrenheit). A reminder that we humans are not the rulers of this planet.

A review from Publishers Weekly.

The Beans of Egypt, Maine

By Carolyn Chute

The story of a small town family, spanning about forty years, starting in the early 1960s. The Beans are a numerous, large family. They tend to be physically imposing and are trashy and lawless with the men of the family rough and abusive. The men fill their yards with broken down vehicles while their wives and girl friends fill their homes with multiple children. They are loud and coarse and vulgar and just the kind of people you don't want living next door to you.
Lee and his young daughter Earlene live across the road from the Beans' trailer house. Lee constantly criticizes the Beans to his daughter. She is not allowed to go over there but naturally she does. And when her transgressions are discovered, Lee washes her mouth out with soap. Years later, and Earlene is still living at home and is a young adult, she once again displeases her father and he washes out her mouth with shampoo. Which is how she ends up in the arms of Beal Bean and pregnant with his baby.
Earlene becomes more and more involved with the Beal and his family. She goes from living a secure life with her father and his parents to living in a shack with no electricity, no running water and no indoor toilet. 

What a story. Not a single character in this story made any sense to me. I found them all repulsive and deplorable. I tried to like Beal Bean, but he turns out to be a cheat, a poacher and pretty useless. I think the reader is intended to like Earlene, though why I don't know. Nothing about her or any of the characters was the least bit appealing.
As I've said before, it's hard to enjoy a story when you don't like any of the characters.
Someone must have liked the novel, though. It was made into a movie released in 1994.

Tobacco Sticks

By William Elliot Hazelgrove

Told through the eyes of a young teen, Lee Hartwell, it is the story of how his family's life was turned upside down because of a trial and a political campaign.
One night Lee and his friend observe their neighbor burying something in a grave. Buddy Hillman is the richest man in the area and owner of the steel mill that is vitally important to the local economy.
A local servant girl, Fanny Jones, is then accused by Buddy of stealing a silver tea set, proof of which is the lid to the teapot found under her bed.
Of course, this is all baloney and Hillman has a reason for wanting to frame Fanny.  It has to do with politics and the suicide of his wife and his teen daughter's distaste for her own father. Burke Hartwell, Lee's father and a lawyer, agrees to defend Fanny. First, because he believes her when she says she didn't do it. And second, because Fanny is a relative of his cook, Addie Jones. Does Burke know what a can of worms he is opening up by defending Fanny? Probably. But he has the courage of his convictions.
Meanwhile, the Hartwell family is having problems of their own. Lee's two older brothers are newly home from World War II. Lucas is suffering from the trauma of combat while Burkie was stationed in comfort in Canada. Lucas has pretty much lost his way and is drinking too much. And Burkie is making time with the girl friend of Lee's best friend Scotty, who killed in the war.

This was a pretty good story, up until the trial of Fanny. The last part of the book is taken up with the trail and testimony of the various witnesses. I just skimmed most of that. Turns out Fanny was framed, big surprise. Up until that part, I was enjoying the story. The whole trial story was so predictable and more than a little tedious. I wish the story had just centered on the Hartwell family and left out the political and trial story lines.

Hellstrom's Hive

By Frank Herbert

A well-know but eccentric filmmaker, Hellstrom, who specializes in nature films, has come to the attention of a nameless government agency. One of Hellstrom's workers left a few papers lying in a college library and the papers were seen by the Agency, papers that hinted at a new and profitable method of metallurgy or even a powerful new weapon. Agents who were sent to snoop at Hellstrom's private compound in rural Oregon have gone missing.
More agents are sent in to snoop. They find a peaceful but unnaturally quiet farm surrounded by hills and ranch land. A few people are observed coming and going from the barn occasionally. Hellstrom is interviewed and claims no knowledge of the missing agents who visited his valley posing as birdwatchers and tourists.
Hellstrom is a liar. He knows exactly what happened to the agents. They were grabbed, interrogated and tortured and their dead bodies consigned to the vats. The vats in which Hellstrom and his 50,000 strong hive of specially bred humans brew their disgusting mush, which goes to feed the worker class. And all this is going on under this peaceful rural valley containing this nest of repulsive semi-humans who are also brewing a powerful weapon with which to subdue the rest of humankind.

This was a weird story. The author's sympathies seem to lie more with the Hive than with the outsiders. I found the whole Hive community gross and repulsive. Actually, no one in the story is really sympathetic. The hivers and the government people are equally vile. Still it made for a fairly interesting if extremely unlikely story.

My Brilliant Friend

By Elena Ferrante

The story of two friends growing up together in Naples. The first in a series.

So Elena and Lila are the same age and go to the same school. They are both intelligent girls but live in a society that doesn't particularly value females beyond their traditional roles as wives and mothers.
Of the two girls, Lila is the wildest, the bravest and the smartest. Her intelligence and courage inspire her friend Elena and make her a better person. Without Lila, Elena would have just settled into the role society expected of her. But with Lila, Elena stretches her intellectual wings and becomes quite the scholar, even gaining entrance to higher education as a young teenager.
But since Elena is a smart girl, she eventually realizes that Lila is actually the one with the superior mind. She realizes that without Lila, she herself would probably be just average. And as the two girls enter into their teen years, Lila blossoms into a willowy beauty. While Elena sees herself as unattractive, with a broad face, big nose, acne and glasses. Elena also realizes that she has always been the follower to Lila the leader, always wanting Lila's approval and admiration.
Both of the girls, growing up poor in the 1950s, have to deal with the rampant violence and abuse that is a normal part of life in their world. Men beat their wives, beat their children, screaming abuse, breaking furniture, throwing dishes. Lila's father throws her out a window during an argument and her arm gets broken. No one gets arrested, no one gets punished, this is just the way things are there. Women and children walking around with black eyes and bruises are a common sight, no big deal. Spats with neighbors turn into vendettas. Rage is everywhere.

The abuse and violence was too much for me. I really didn't care for any of these people. Lila is a pill and Elena is a zero. Their society is repulsive. Their willingness to abuse and to tolerate the abuse was dispiriting. I was just tired of the lot of them towards the end of the book, which has a very abrupt ending. I guess it is designed to lead you on to the next book. But I am not interested in finding out anything more about any of them.