Unspoken: A Dust Novel

by Jann Alexander

Overview

"Reminds me, in tone, of Texas classics like The Time it Never Rained and Giant. I loved it. Alexander is a great new talent in the genre of Texana." -W.F. Strong, author, Stories From Texas, and radio commentator for NPR Texas

A Farm Devastated. A Dream Destroyed. A Family Scattered. And One Texas Girl Determined to Salvage the Wreckage.

Ruby Lee Becker can't breathe. It's 1935 in the heart of the Dust Bowl, and the Becker family has clung to its Texas Panhandle farm through six years of drought, dying crops, and dust storms. On Black Sunday, the biggest blackest storm of them all threatens ten-year-old Ruby with deadly dust pneumonia and requires a drastic choice -one her mother, Willa Mae, will forever regret.

To survive, Ruby is forced to leave the only place she's ever known. Far from home in Waco, and worried her mother has abandoned her, she's determined to get back.

Even after twelve years, Willa Mae still clings to memories of her daughter. Unable to reunite with Ruby, she's broken by their separation.

Through rollicking adventures and harrowing setbacks, the tenacious Ruby Lee embarks on her perilous quest for home -and faces her one unspoken fear.

Heart-wrenching and inspiring, the tale of Ruby Lee's dogged perseverance and Willa Mae's endless love for her daughter shines a light on women driven apart by disaster who bravely lean on one another, find comfort in remade families, and redefine what home means.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781685136222
Publisher:	Black Rose Writing
Publication date:	07/03/2025
Series:	Dust , #1
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.82(d)

About the Author

Jann Alexander is a 20-year resident of central Texas and creator of the Vanishing Austin photography series. Her lifelong storytelling habit and her more recent passion for Texas history merged to become the historical novel Unspoken, her first book in the Dust Series. She holds a B.S. from the University of Maryland. When Jann is not reading, writing, or creating, she bikes, hikes, skis, and kayaks. Jann always brakes for historical markers.

Editorial Reviews

2025-05-20
In Alexander’s historical novel, drought and violent dust storms sweeping across the Texas panhandle bring tragedy and challenges to a young girl.

Ruby Lee Becker is only 10 years old in 1935 when she sits at the double funeral for her grandmother, Alma, and baby sister, Nell, both of whom succumbed on the same day to the deadly dust plague. Ruby’s mother, Willa Mae, is frozen with grief. Just days later, Ruby falls ill with “dust pneumonia” and is hospitalized. When she recovers, her father and older brother, Will, pick her up, but they drive her the train station, not home; Will is taking her to Waco, where the air is clear. He gives her $20 and leaves her with Granny Alma’s widowed cousin, Bess, with whom she is to live until the air in Hartless, Texas, is once again safe for breathing. Angry and frightened, Ruby decides the only thing in her control is her voice, and she decides to stop speaking. She hears nothing from her family, and in 1936, shortly after her 11th birthday, Cousin Bess dies. Ruby’s next stop is the Waco State Home for Dependent and Neglected Children, where she remains for seven years, despite repeated escape attempts. Playing out in tandem with Ruby’s story is that of her mother; unbeknownst to Ruby, Willa Mae has been placed in the state mental facility. The mother and daughter poignantly narrate alternating chapters in Alexander’s coming-of-age Dust Bowl narrative. In vivid, graphic prose, enhanced by dialogue that reflects the dialects and linguistic patterns of the period and social station of the characters (“A red sun augurs a bad day”), the author limns the chilling cruelty of the treatment of mental patients as well as the abuses that take place at the children’s home. There are also delightful interludes, as when Eleanor Roosevelt rescues Ruby during a dust storm, or when the school nurse gives her special (marijuana) cigarettes to help her asthma. Most appealing are the tender friendships that develop at the home and on the road as Ruby gradually learns that families can be created in all sorts of ways.

Sad and disturbing, yet buoyed by hope and formidable female characters.

Kirkus Reviews