Out of the Dust

Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse

Karen Hesse's novel Out of the Dust, comprised entirely of poems, is probably the most depressing book I've ever read; it brought tears to my eyes on several occasions. And yet, I remember reading it at the beach one summer after 4th or 5th grade, but don't quite remember it having the same effect then. The novel tells the story of Billie Jo Kelby, a gangly, young, redheaded girl with a knack for piano-playing, who undergoes more suffering and loss than any child ever should. Hesse paints a picture of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl so sharply and accurately that readers are enthralled from the very first page.

Her poetry is absolutely fantastic; I honestly haven't read any other like it. She uses phenomenal sensory images: I can taste the dust on my tongue and feel it on my skin as I read the poems that make up her novel, which are all from young (but incredibly mature) Billie Jo's perspective. The first poem that really stuck out to me when I began the book was called "State Tests" on page 30. Billie Jo describes to her mother how their school scored the highest in the state on achievement tests and she scored the highest in the 8th grade class, but her Ma merely says "I knew you could." She knows her mother is proud, but she won't praise, thus Billie Jo feels like her Ma "makes me feel like she's just/taking me in like I was/so much flannel dry on the line" (30). This was the first personal connection I made with the story because I had such a polar opposite experience growing up: my parents made sure to praise me at every appropriate opportunity, and I couldn't imagine how discouraged she was feeling. However, the sentiment hit me as a reader even harder later in the book, with the poem introducing Winter 1935 called "State Tests Again." At this point, her mother has died a painful death, and Billie Jo says she "Wish I could run home and tell Ma/and see her nod/and hear her say,/ 'I knew you could.'/It would be enough" (99). When I read that poem, in light of the first one, my heart broke.

After the first state tests poem, the next page's poem is called "Fields of Flashing Lights," in which we have our first experience with dust, and the events of the book seem to all go downhill from there.

The tragic turning point was the poem "The Accident," on page 60, in which Billie Jo's father leaves a pail of kerosene near the stove that Ma thinks is water, then when a small fire starts and she runs outside, Billie Jo grabs the pail and throws it out the door to prevent the house from burning down; but instead, it splashes Ma completely, and she gets badly burned. A few pages later, "Devoured" describes her death while giving birth to a son, who also dies a few days later. As if these events weren't horrible already, the author reminds the reader throughout the rest of the book that Billie Jo's hands were also maimed by burns when she tried to save her mother from the flames, so her piano talents are crippled forever. This recurring detail is just crushing to anyone who reads this book.

The rest of the novel continues in a similar manner: at times, Billie Jo seems hopeful because rain will come, but then the reader is trapped on an emotional roller coaster once more as a dust storm worse than the last occurs. People and animals die, crops suffer, technology fails, the economy plummets; but dust prevails. After trying to run away to the West, only to come back because she felt even lonelier without her Daddy, and after her father begins to court his night class teacher Louise, Billie Jo finally starts to feel the sense of a family again; and with that comes hope. But in the end, this novel is much more a reflection on the worst economic times of our country and forces children readers to connect to a world of misery they could not even imagine existed. It made me thankful for what I have.