Sanora Babb’s long unpublished novel “Whose Names Are Unknown” now takes its place as a Dust Bowl classic in the discussion of the era. Dr. Sherrey Cardwell, formerly of Cameron University, opens the program on Babb’s novel at the Altus Public Library Thursday, Sept. 24 at 7 p.m. For more information contact Tammy Davis at 580-477-2890.

Sanora Babb wrote “Whose Names Are Unknown” in 1939, but her timing was unlucky. Bennett Cerf of Random House called it “exceptionally fine,” but John Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” was published that same year and Cerf felt the market wouldn’t bear two books about such similar topics. The manuscript remained in a desk drawer until the University of Oklahoma Press published it in 2004. Babb’s powerful tale of Julia and Milt Dunne and their daughters is one of the great novels of the Dust Bowl experience. Like so many others of the era, the Dunnes are lured to California by the promise of work only to encounter brutal, degrading conditions on work farms. Babb used her own childhood experiences and her work with Dust Bowl refugees through the Farm Security Administration to create a realistic story. “Whose Names are Unknown” combines the epic sweep of Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath” with a story of ordinary people facing extreme adversity and hard choices. Babb provides a gripping account of human survival and the poetry of everyday life in both good and bad times.

Dr. Cardwell grew up and was educated in Arkansas. He received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in English from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He taught at Cameron University beginning in 1971 and served as chair of the English Department at Cameron from 1983 to 1999. Dr. Cardwell enjoys genealogy and has done extensive research into his roots. He also loves to travel and has taken over two thousand slides of country houses, gardens and historic places in England, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and the United States. He taught courses in Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and Composition for Graduate Students. During the academic years 1994-1997 he was the McCaslin Foundation/AmQuest Bank Chair at Cameron University and Coordinator of Festival III: Science, Technology and the 20th Century. He has been a part of “Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma” since 1990.

Books, services, and other materials for this series of programs are provided by “Let’s Talk About It, Oklahoma,” a project of the Oklahoma Humanities Council with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Funding for this series was provided by a grant from the Inasmuch Foundation.