Whose Names Are Unknown

I think Sanora Babb is an underappreciated author. During the 1930s, Babb worked for the Farm Security Administration and was inspired to write a novel about Dust Bowl migrants. Unfortunately, her publishing contract was canceled when John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath.

As much as I love Steinbeck, I love Babb’s novel more. She paints a vivid picture of life in small-town Oklahoma through small, domestic details. I appreciated the range of characters across the economic spectrum. Her characters are strong, but they are also aware that they are cogs in a machine, caught in circumstances beyond their… show more.

All readers who love The Grapes of Wrath (as I do), owe it to themselves and this author to read this stunning novel.

Sanora Babb wrote it in the 1930s from her own experiences with displacement and poverty during the Dust Bowl, and it was set to be published at that time but was suddenly shelved because Steinbeck’s book appeared on the horizon. He had worked from her journals to create his masterpiece.

Babb’s manuscript was finally published in 2004, a striking, poignantly written story of a family determined to survive in the face of an absolute cataclysm.