cover image Rising in the West: The True Story of an ""Okie"" Fa: The Great Depression Through the Reagan Years

Rising in the West: The True Story of an ""Okie"" Fa: The Great Depression Through the Reagan Years

Dan Morgan. Alfred A. Knopf, $25 (532pp) ISBN 978-0-394-57453-0

This deft, often spellbinding true story of the westward migration and upward mobility of an American farming family follows the plucky Tathums as they stagger across the 1930s American landscape from one hardscrabble hamlet to the next until reaching ``Californy.'' In Fresno, they clamber up the social ladder--picking grapes, selling potatoes and furniture--managing to rise surprisingly high. Washington Post reporter Morgan ( Merchants of Grain ) skillfully evokes the post-Civil War South, the prairie, Oklahoma, pentecostal churches and sleepy, still-developing California, showing the Tathums getting rich and supporting ultra-conservative candidates and causes. His sympathetic portrait of members of the religious right compels respect for their hard work and values. But the book's second half never achieves the mythic resonance of the opening chapters, with their stirring depiction of a brave family riding a truck towards the unknown. Photos. BOMC and QPB alternates. (Sept.)