Johnny Depp is co-editing a unpublished Woody Guthrie novel, House Of Earth, according to reports in Rolling Stone and The New York Times.
Inspired by his own experiences living during the Dust Bowl era, the story follows two west Texas farmers, Tike and Ella May Hamlin and their run ins with a bank and lumber company. Depp is co-editing the novel with Douglas Brinkley. Depp and Brinkley wrote an essay in The New York Times about the project, saying the book is a “meditation about how poor people search for love and meaning in a corrupt world, one in which the rich have lost their moral compasses. Even though the backdrop is the washed-out agricultural fields of Texas, the novel could just as easily be set in a refugee camp in Sudan or a shantytown in Haiti.”
Guthrie finished the novel in 1947, but set it to one side to concentrate on his songwriting.
House Of Earth will be published next year.
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