Rainwater is set in Texas during the Great Depression, though judging from the fact that the families there have gardens that actually produce, they are not in the worst areas of the Dust Bowl. Ella Baron runs a boarding house in what was her family’s home. Abandoned by her husband and with an autistic child to raise, she lives a rather restricted life, working dawn to dusk just trying to make ends meet. When the local doctor asks her to take one of his family members, David Rainwater, as a boarder she does so reluctantly, especially when told the situation will be temporary as Rainwater is dying.
This book starts out rather slowly, and I initially wondered where the Depression came into play. It quickly heats up, though, and Ella is swept against her will into local circumstances: the killing of livestock both to boost market prices and to keep the animals from starving to death due to the climate changes, racial tensions with the lynching of a Black man and the burning of a Black-owned business, and repeated run-ins with a former high school suitor who’s become a bully. All with a splash of romance between Ella and Rainwater. And a surprising twist at the end.
The book is bookended by a scene in an antique shop with a couple chatting with the owner and learning the above story. The prose is understated as is the romance and sex scenes. I ended up liking this more than I had anticipated from its slow start.
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Rainwater (Simon & Schuster, Reissue edition, October 13, 2009) is available through:
Your local independent bookseller | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
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