Daniel Tomelin has left his family. Not able to provide for them during the Great Depression, he left. Simply walked away.
He had the best of intentions. He knew that without him there, his wife's family would take care of her. He thought he would find work, save some money, and return to his family a better man. We cannot imagine the thought process, or the difficulty he had in making that decision to walk out. He gave them no information as to motive, or direction, he simply walked out of their lives.
He left at home a wife and several children, and did not know that his wife was early in a new pregnancy when he left. The home they lived in is owned by a ruthless, and moral-less brother-in-law.
We follow Daniels' travels, as he walks, hops rides on cargo trains, and hitch-hikes across the country in search of work. He finds work here and there, but barely enough to survive on. We find him sleeping in barns, in ditches, wherever he can find some shelter from the elements.
We also follow the problems at home, as his wife tries to survive, feed her children, and make sense of why her husband would simply walk out. The brother-in-law takes advantage of her vulnerable situation, in a horrible turn of events.
While a beautiful story - of survival on both fronts (both Daniel's on the road as a vagrant, and his wife's at home). But I found that the story dragged on too long. About half way through the book, it was just the same story, over and over, as Daniel found his way to a new town, into new vagrant circumstances.
The story has good things offer, through insight to the struggles of the Great Depression, but the author tended to ramble on, and had it been cut a few chapters shorter, would have been a better novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment