How to Cope with the Great Recession
Against a Darkening Sky is now one of my favorite all-time books. Since I finished it, I miss it. I miss the characters. It is a quiet and gentle book about hard times--quiet and gentle because the main characters are so. A story of farmers and working people in California in the years directly preceding and during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Against a Darkening Sky is a paean to the kind of Americans we imagine lived in this period and during World War II, but which we do not see nowadays: hard-working, forebearing, patient, neighborly, prepared for disappointment and sacrifice. It is a portrait of Ms. Lewis' neighbors during these times. Known for her works of historical fiction such as The Wife of Martin Guerre and The Invasion, Ms. Lewis crafts Against a Darkening Sky in a way that simply cuts out a swath of life and lays it out on the counter for us to see. Triumph or failure is not the subject; endurance--emotional, physical, and moral--is.
