Night of the poor

F. Prokosch

This is an engaging tale of a young man coming of age in the 1930s US Depression. Tom is a sheltered youth working on his uncle's Wisconsin farm when his uncle dies and he must return to his father's farm in Texas. Pete, one of the farm hands, suggests that they could get to Texas together on the $33 that Tom has. Tom and Pete join an army of out of work drifters crisscrossing the land, working at odd jobs for their meals and sleeping under the stars. Tom loses Pete along the way and falls in love with Lucy, a young runaway girl, only to lose her too. Written at the end of the Depression on the eve of the US entry into World War II, the novel portrays the devastating effects of the Depression on the US. All along the way Tom finds people down on their luck and without resources, pushed to the limits of their endurance. Prokosch hints at a new nation being born out of this painful period.