Stormy Weather - by Paulette Jiles (Paperback)

About the Book

From the author of the critically acclaimed "New York Times" bestseller "Enemy Women" comes an eagerly anticipated, stirring work of fiction set against the dark days of the Great Depression.

From the Back Cover

Oil is king of East Texas during the darkest years of the Great Depression. The Stoddard girls--responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea--know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks. But in a year of devastating drought and dust storms, the family's fortunes sink further than they ever anticipated when a questionable "accident" leaves the girls and their mother, Elizabeth, alone to confront the cruelest hardships of these hardest of times.

Returning to their previously abandoned family farm, the resilient Stoddard women must now place their last hopes for salvation in a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left . . . and on the back of late patriarch Jack's one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe.

Review Quotes

"Jiles is a first-rate storyteller who . . . reminds us just how deeply the Great Depression battered America's soul." - Seattle Times
"Jiles's eloquent, engaging novel celebrates four strong women toughing out the Great Depression . . . [a] gritty saga." - Publishers Weekly
"[A] stirring story . . . of self and home in language as spare and stark as the Texas landscape." - Booklist
"Jiles's follow-up to her highly praised debut, Enemy Women, [is] a deeply satisfying novel with wide appeal." - Library Journal (starred review)
"The novel gathers its rangy energy and heart . . . as [Jiles] gives voice to raw, grave people not unlike those made famous in Walker Evans's indelible Depression-era photographs." - Boston Globe
"A beautiful example of craftsmanship, a salute to the gritty survivors of the worst period of our history and a touching exploration of memorable characters." - Richmond Times-Dispatch