• Woody Guthrie is an American icon, a writer of moral vision and an authentic voice of the rural poor and working class, he was a  major influence on songwriters such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Joe Strummer, Billy Bragg, Jeff Tweedy, and Tom Paxton. He was . His songs, notably This Land Is Your Land, remain relevant today.

• House of Earth is the inaugural title in Johnny Depp’s new imprint, Infinitum Nihil. Depp will promote the book at the time of its publication.

• July 14, 2012 marked the centennial of Guthrie's birth. The Woody Guthrie Foundation has organized tribute concerts across the country throughout the summer and fall. The centennial and the concerts have sparked new interest and awareness in Woody’s music.

• New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brinkley and icon Johnny Depp have co-written the introduction to House of Earth. Read their piece in the New York Times Book Review here and a background feauture by the Sunday Book Review's editors here.

• Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter and the head of Woody Guthrie Publications, will promote the House of Earth, bringing this novel directly to Woody's most dedicated fans.

• The one and only novel written by Woody Guthrie, House of Earth was lost for more than sixty years. It is a singular look into the soul and passion of one of America’s greatest artists.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Finished in 1947, House of Earth is Woody Guthrie’s long-lost and only fully realized novel—a powerful portrait of Dust Bowl America, filled with the homespun lyricism and authenticity that have made his songs a part of our national consciousness. It is the story of an ordinary couple’s dreams of a better life and their search for love and meaning in a corrupt world.

Tike and Ella May Hamlin struggle to plant roots in the arid land of the Texas Panhandle. Living in a precarious wooden farm shack, Tike yearns for a sturdy house that will protect them from the treacherous elements. Thanks to a five-cent government pamphlet, he has the know-how to build a simple adobe dwelling, a structure made from the land itself—fireproof, windproof, Dust-Bowl proof. A house of earth.

Though they are one with the the farm and each other, the land on which Tike and Ella May live and work is not theirs. Thanks to larger forces beyond their control—including ranching conglomerates and banks—their adobe house remains painfully out of reach.

A story of rural realism and progressive activism that is in many ways a companion piece to Guthrie’s folk anthem This Land Is Your Land, House of Earth is a searing portrait of hardship and hope set against a ravaged landscape. Combining the moral urgency and narrative drive of John Steinbeck with the erotic frankness of D. H. Lawrence, it is a powerful tale of America from one of our greatest artists.