House of Earth is folk singer and protest song writer, Woody Guthrie’s first and only novel, which he originally wrote in 1947, however, sadly it was never published in his time. The good news though is that it first saw the light of day recently when it was distributed in hardback on the 5th February 2013, and soon it will be getting its launch in paperback form to bring a new message from the late great folk legend.
Set for a paperback release date of Monday the 21st October 2013, the book adds to Guthrie’s much loved songs, like This Land Is Your Land and Pastures of Plenty. While it’s been unseen for years, the book was brought back from the grave by Johnny Depp’s imprint company, Infinitum Nihil, which is a part of HarperCollins Publishing, as their first ever book publication.
Like many of his songs, House of Earth is inspired by his time spent in the Dust Bowl of the United States during the Great Depression which saw him travelling with workers from Oklahoma to California in a bid for a better life. While was learning their folk and blues songs, and earning himself the nickname Dust Bowl Troubadour, he was also getting a significant insight into the life of the people that also inspired great books like John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
The story centres around couple, Tike and Ella May Hamlin, who struggle to make ends meat in the dust bowl crisis that struck the American prairie during the 1930s and the additional economic devastation of the Great Depression. As they strive for a better life in the heat and dust of Texas, they try to go from their simple, rickety wooden shake to the relative security of a house that they set out to build made of the earth itself, but as the land they live on is owned by bigger business than themselves, their struggle for security isn’t an easy one to achieve.
The reason why Guthrie’s novel might not have been published previously is not only the harsh realism that is at the heart of the book, but also the true to life portrait of the couple’s days and nights on the land, including their erotic exploits. The frank delivery of their existence is a stark and morally charged story, offering up the potential of a new great American author out of the brilliance of one of the world’s most well know folk legends.
Johnny Depp and American author Douglas Brinkley introduce the long-lost Woodie Guthrie novel, giving their take on the work and why it’s so important. It’ll be interesting to hear why the actor took it up to be his company’s first literature investment.
