Yonnondio: From the Thirties

A young girl survives a very hardscrabble existance, dragged from coal mine to sunflower farm to the bloody slaughterhouses of Omaha as her father struggles to find work that will support himself and his growing family. The little girl tries to find joy in a life that is almost totally devoid of it; to escape despair, her father drinks; her mother, constantly pregnant, is worn out trying to keep them all fed and housed; and the one place where they are all happy, the sunflower farm in North Dakota, ruins them with capricious weather. Their final move, to Omaha, is where the book ends. I gave the book 5 stars on the strength of the writing and story; a book that was begun decades earlier, the author resurrected what was already written and published it without adding much. It's a pity there is no followup; it is a story begging for resolution. You wonder how the family did; if the children grew to escape the fates of their parents (one child is lost to sickness), or if they were lost in the cracks of humanity that swarmed amongst the poor of the 30s. I heard stories like this while growing up, from survivors of the Depression; we will probably not return to such abject misery as is portrayed here, but this thin little book is a cautionary tale, and very moving.

The majority of Yonnondio was written when Olsen was 19 years old. Her husband discovered its remains among Olsen's papers in 1972 and she herself pieced the current book together and published the still unfinished results in 1974. This newest version of the book includes new material discovered by Olsen that was not included in the 1974 version. Yonnondio (the title taken from a Walt Whitman poem) is a moving lament for the impoverishment and despair of young families and young women during the depression. Despite the uneveness and jumpiness of the narrative (an artifact of its unfinished status), the small and detailed moments leap out through the pages to capture the reader. It is occasionally a very sad book, and always very beautiful. It's unusual to be so impressed by an unfinished novel published when the author was still living. Unfortunately, Olsen has published so few works that even something rough and unfinished is a welcome treat. While I understand her insistence that she would not write any new material for the book, it is hard not to read it and wish it were possible to read the finished book. If the fragments are so magnificent, what would the final work have been?

First, the woman who claims the father in this book has sexual relations with his child is mistaken. Actually, what takes place is a marital rape that the child hears through the wall. Not pretty, but any feminist activist has to know this kind of tragedy didn't end in the 30s...That aside, this book is one of the most poignant portrayals of poverty and working class struggle I've ever read. I've taught it to literature students who agreed that the picture Yonnondio paints is not pretty, but the book is mesmerizing just the same. It's absolutely shameful that an amazing book by one of the foremost advocates for women's and working class people's rights is being "silenced" by going out of print.

Tillie Olsen write much like Steinbeck in her prose as she illustrates the struggles of a poor family.

Tillie Olsen's YONNONDIO is such an essential story of poverty and personal struggle. When we look around for stories that help us, this should be high on any list. It's as relevant today as it was in 1936; the poor continue to be used and forgotten, and yet their spirit rises as it does in this clear and compassionate portrait.