Falling to Earth by Kate Southwood

I read Kate Southwood’s ‘Falling To Earth’ over a year ago, and this novel's power has stayed with me. I am in awe of Southwood’s beautiful writing and the cadence of this mesmerizing story. This dramatic story is like reading a tragedy from Shakespeare. Heartbreak awaits you, but you keep reading because Shakespeare’s writing and observations will penetrate your being.

The tragedy Southwood writes about in ‘Falling to Earth’ is twofold. On March 18, 1925, an actual tornado whipped through Illinois, Indiana and Missouri. It was one of the worst tornados in our country’s history and is now called the Tri-State Tornado. This day is the starting point from where Southwood begins her fiction, in a small town called Marah, Illinois. The tornado destroys buildings and people, including a schoolhouse full of children. With so much destruction and loss, the townspeople are overwrought and bereft.

Paul Graves and his wife Mae live in March with their three children and Paul’s mother Lavinia. By some miracle, the Graves family escapes the tornado’s devastation. Their house is untouched, and their children are unharmed. They have done nothing wrong but survive. The story's second tragedy is the community’s reaction to Paul and Mae’s good fortune. Though Paul and Mae work hard to help their neighbors clean up and rebuild, the townspeople with whom they have been friendly, slowly turn against them. A collective but uncoordinated desire for Paul Graves's family to suffer takes hold. This small, tormented town of 1925 becomes snarled in superstitions and small-mindedness. With silent shunning and petty cruelties, they blame the Graves family for escaping the catastrophe. At some level, these former neighbors and friends come to believe that if the Graves family suffers, their grief will be soothed.

This book is a wise meditation on grief. Southwood’s depiction of this dreadful dynamic is well depicted. The novel’s pacing is slow, which makes the action more suspenseful. The story encompasses the rawness of human emotions.

Southwood’s writing is precise with poetic flourishes that pack an emotional punch. More importantly, Southwood’s psychological insight into human emotions and behavior is subtly and superbly delivered. ‘Falling to Earth’ teaches how grief can ricochet, even striking undeserving victims. 5/5