What the Thunder Said
Janet Peery
St. Martin's Press
<p><p>What the Thunder Said is the 2008 winner of the WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction.<p>In the Dust Bowl of 1930s Oklahoma, a family comes apart, as sisters Mackie and Etta Spoon keep secrets from their father, and from each other. <p><BR>Etta, the dangerously impulsive favorite of her father, longs for adventure someplace far away from the bleak and near-barren plains, and she doesn't care how she gets there; watchful Mackie keeps house and obeys the letter of her father's law, while harboring her own dreams. After the massive 1935 Black Sunday dust storm brings ruin to the family, the sisters' conflict threatens further damage. Seeking escape, and wagering their futures on an Indian boarding school runaway named Audie Kipp, the two leave home to forge their own separate paths, each setting off in search of a new life, each finding a fate different than she expected.<p><BR>Through shifting perspectives, voices, and characters, <I>What the Thunder Said</I> tracks...</BR></p></BR></p></p></p></p>