The Land of Little Rain Book

The author of this short work of non-fiction, Mary Hunter Austin, was one of a number of fascinating women who were writing in California in the early 20th century. Many of them were journalists. Mary Austin was not. She was born in 1868 in Illinois and in 1888 (ten years after the death of her father) moved with her family to the San Joaquin Valley. Following their marriage in 1891 Mary and her husband, Stanford Wallace Austin, lived and travelled in and around Lone Pine, a community situated between the southern Sierra Nevada range and the Mojave Desert.

This was the author's first and best-known book. Her love of and respect for her adopted home shine through gloriously. Page after page describes in sometimes vivid, sometimes gentle language the beauty that Austin sees in all seasons in the natural environment - mountains, valleys, mesas, desert. She speaks with playful humour and deep respect of the Native American people and the quirky characters who populated these regions in the wake of the Gold Rush.

Austin experiences Life with the keen eye and sensitive emotions typical of the artistic temperament, so it comes as no surprise that, in 1906 (after the death of her child and the disintegration of her marriage) she moved to an artist colony at Carmel-by-the-Sea. Following a sojourn in Europe, when she met feminist activists, her plays and novels became concerned with social and feminist themes.

This book has been my introduction to the work of Mary Hunter Austin, and a very pleasant introduction, to be sure! I look forward to reading her autobiography, Earth Horizon, to learn more about her unconventional life and, of course, to reading more of her many fiction and non-fiction works.