She lived, she wrote, she died.  And just before her end came at ninety-eight, her novel was published by a university press.  (Decades earlier, Bennett Cerf of Random House had praised it, yet killed it.)  A trick of fate that Steinbeck’s book beat hers to the printers, but fate is known to be a trickster.  We all have suffered at his hand;  he is busy, indeed.

Sanora Babb’s novel lived sixty-five years of its life in a drawer.  A life, yes, because a manuscript has a life, its characters smothered within its unturned pages, clamoring to be caressed, screaming to be heard.  Now due to the magic of television, this book Whose Names Are Unknown --- Sanora’s novel --- has attained Amazon’s bestseller status.  I predict further printings. 

Congratulations, Sanora.  Like the fields of “The Dust Bowl,” you are reborn. 

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/dustbowl/bios/sanora-babb