Listen

by Sheldon Russell

Stripped of opportunity by the Great Depression, educated and ambitious Liam takes a low-paying job with the Federal Writers’ Project, assigned to collect stories of rural life for the Library of Congress in a hot, poverty-stricken Dust Bowl town in Oklahoma. He’ll take his government check, write the stories, and wait for better times. Then Liam meets a woman who upends all his plans.

Eden Sawyer may be poor, but she’s hardworking and determined. She has dreams; more than that, she has talent. As Liam interviews her, he discovers that Eden longs to be an artist, and has the skill to do it, if only she can break the cycle of poverty that traps her.

Eden leads Liam to an unexpected, unimagined love. But as he interviews more townspeople, Liam’s probing questions steer him into danger, threatening to reveal untold secrets, unsolved mysteries, and unfulfilled passions. Will one man’s simmering jealousy and thwarted ambition bring Liam and Eden’s story to an abrupt and deadly end?


Reviews
Reminiscent of Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants, Sheldon Russell’s Listen paints a picture of the resilience of people during the Great Depression. Jobs were hard to come by when Liam Walker stepped off the train in Atlas, Oklahoma. He was out of options and had to make a living. And then he met the inhabitants of the town. Working for the Federal Writers’ Project, a part of Roosevelt’s WPA, he listened to their stories and learned the difference between working to live and living to work. Eden, a woman with troubles of her own, had a burning talent and drive that would pull her up—if she would let it—and Liam wanted to help her. Listen is full of deep characterizations and action to keep you guessing. Five stars for Listen.
— Peggy Chambers, author of Blooming Greed

Listen is an excellent read. The character development is very well done, and the plot keeps the story moving at a swift pace. The clear, concise, and descriptive sentences make the story come alive. The references to the flora and fauna of the setting add a lot to the novel. I thoroughly enjoyed all of the characters. They were realistic to the extent that I felt as though I knew many of them. Listen is a very interesting novel that I will recommend to all of my literary friends!
— Dave Kirkbride, former Executive Director, Kansas National Education Association

In 1935, FDR established the Federal Writers’ Project to hire unemployed writers during the Great Depression and record the unique experiences of ordinary Americans across the country. Sheldon Russell’s latest novel, Listen , uses this ambitious government program to uncover the surprising stories of rural residents in an isolated Oklahoma town and emphasize the power that narrative can have in bringing us together. As in his other work, Russell gives voice to the beauty and mystery behind northwestern Oklahoma’s harsh landscape and resilient residents.
— Matthew Lambert, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of English, Foreign Language, and Humanities, Northwestern Oklahoma State University

Genres: Historical Fiction

216 pages, Paperback

Published April 8, 2023

About the author

My biography is available on my website: http://www.sheldonrussell.com

Reviews

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this novel of a young man from the Northeast who takes a job as a writer for the WPA during the great depression. Liam learns there's more to education than a diploma, and that it can be a challenge to really hear people's stories.

[Richard Rouillard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Literary analysts and critics sometimes forget how the general reading public respond to stories. When I received my advanced copy of Listen by Oklahoma author Sheldon Russell, I decided to read it aloud to my wife. One of the characteristics of good narrative prose—fact or fiction-- is fluidity and an honest measure of that is reading aloud. I as the reader and she as the listener agreed that Listen is a good story written by an author who knows his craft.
The story begins when Liam Walker gets off a train in Atlas, Oklahoma. He was used to Eastern city life, and small-town Oklahoma is truly an awakening. I responded to that initial chapter personally. Having grown up in a city in Massachusetts I learned about life in a small town when I moved to Bovina, Texas, in 1961. While Liam is intrigued by his first view of the “Castle on the Hill,” I had been fascinated by grain elevators “thirteen miles away.” A good story will always let a reader make connections. From the start of my narration, Carolyn and I connected with the story about small- town life where everyone either knows everybody personally or knows something about everybody through hearsay. She had grown up understanding that; I learned it in Bovina.
Liam is a newly-hired writer for Roosevelt’s Federal Writers Project. His project manager has assigned him to Atlas, Oklahoma, to record the stories of the folk affected by the Depression and the effects of the Dust Bowl slightly west. The town has had up to now a Normal School which —thanks to a governor’s romantic ideas and ideals – has a brand new building, a Norman Castle housing a “full-blown” college.
While we read about the interviews and Liam’s growing relationships with the people of the community, we witness the young man grow in his understanding of human nature. Russell’s narrative style lets the reader become a part of the story and not simply an observer from outside the pages. In short, the storyteller helps the reader to keep moving right up to the very last sentence. Every character introduced has traits that a reader can relate to and these pull the reader/listener into the story.”
Our past experiences enabled my wife and me to love the characters, especially Liam and Eden. I also connected with Willie, the kind of Passepartout who knows everyone in the community and helps Liam find the “right” people to interview. Among the common people Liam learns from are a garbage collector, the county jailer, a successful chef and several others the reader will enjoy getting to know. The suggestion of a romance between Hattie and Liam is an underlying possibility. As co-readers my wife and I both learned to enjoy the genial characters and to distrust others like Leah and Carl. We all know people like Carl.
I also appreciated how the “Castle on the Hill” became a character; “It was a unifying force that kept it all together.” The destruction of the Castle becomes the gateway and a catalyst for Eden and Liam to begin new careers. As readers we cannot know if those new adventures might be short-lived, but in the final chapter we learn that the quests are there for the pair to engage in.
As an aside, the “Castle on the Hill” was the original building designed by Guthrie architect John Foucart to house the early years of Northwestern Oklahoma State University, and it unfortunately burned beyond repair in 1935. A fiction writer who enjoys storytelling can take historical information and tailor facts into a pleasant read.
Sheldon Russell has earned the Oklahoma Center for the Book’s Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award for 2023 and was honored at the Center’s Awards Banquet on April 22, 2023. It is a fitting tribute to an Oklahoma author who is a master storyteller.

[Jordan Stine · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Liam Walker has just graduated from college in the midst of the Great Depression. Needing employment, he reluctantly takes a job with the Federal Writer’s Project, a part of The New Deal. He is sent to a small town in Oklahoma and tasked with conducting interviews with local inhabitants that will be stored in the Smithsonian Institution. The hotel desk clerk, who is an indelible character in his own right, assists him by providing the people to interview. Each interview is a gem, showing the resilience and determination of people who are poor, but undefeated. Sheldon Russell is a gifted writer who perfectly limns this time and place.

[Leslie Earnest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this historical fiction for the Community Reads project at my local Public Library. I grew up near the small town in Oklahoma that the fictional town of Atlas is based on, so this was an interesting and relatable read. The Castle on the Hill was a real castle built to house the college that burned down in 1935. This was well-written with an interesting plot. The characters were unique, intriguing and their stories are the best parts of the book.

[Beverly Warden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listen

Great story with profound message. We all need to listen, as everyone has their own story. Loved the upbeat ending!