The dust storms that terrorized America's High Plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people that held on have never been fully told. Pulitzer Prizewinning New York Times journalist and author Timothy Egan follows a half-dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod huts to new framed houses to basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out. He follows their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Drawing on the voices of those who stayed and survivedthose who, now in their eighties and nineties, will soon carry their memories to the graveEgan tells a story of endurance and heroism against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Egan captures the very voice of the times its grit, pathos, and abiding heroismas only great history can. Combining the human drama of Isaac's Storm with the sweep of The American People in the Great Depression, The Worst Hard Time is a lasting and important work of American history.

蒂莫西· 伊根，畢業於華盛頓大學，曾在《泰晤士報》擔任全國新聞記者，遊曆西方，因參與係列報道《美國的種族生活》而與一組記者分享瞭2001年的普利策新聞奬。目前，他為《紐約時報》撰寫在綫評論專欄，著有多部非虛構作品。2006年因《骯髒的三十年代：沙塵暴中的美國人》一書榮獲當年的美國國傢圖書奬非虛構作品奬。