Out of the Dust

Out of the Dust Summary | Plot Summary

Billie Jo is a thirteen-year-old girl living in Oklahoma during the dust bowl era. She lives with Ma and Daddy, and, so far, she is their only child. She has red hair like Daddy and long legs and freckles. She loves the piano. In this touching coming of age story, Billie Jo deals with hard times. First, there's the dust. In 1934 and 1935, the time frame of this novel, dust storms cover Oklahoma in a great cloud of despair. Drought, overgrazing and erosion make life here unbearable for Billie Jo. Then there's the fact that her best friend's family moves away to California. Throughout the book, people leave in one way or another, and Billie Jo wishes she were the one leaving.

The good news is that Ma is pregnant, and Billie Jo finds hope in the expectation of new life. The other good news is that Billie Jo is really good at piano. She plays some shows and even earns money at it. Playing piano is a form of escape both figuratively and actually for her as much as an art. When she's in her music, that's all she thinks about. That's the best part, but she also has the chance to travel with a group of musicians, including Arley Wanderdale, his wife Vera, a boy named Mad Dog and a band called Black Mesa Boys.

Billie Jo's relationship with her parents is typical for the era. She's close to them, but they are no experts at showing their love. Billie Jo constantly wishes Ma would offer more support and encouragement. Nevertheless, she is loved, and she knows it. She has a strong family, and she is looking forward to the baby.

From time to time, a little rain might fall, but it's never enough to do any good. The crops are dying. Ma and Daddy argue over what to do. Ma suggests other crops more suited to dry conditions, but Daddy is stubborn. There is a lot of love and commitment in their marriage but also a lot of tension. Billie Jo feels it as one of the many effects of the horrid dust.

Just as the baby is almost due, a terrible accident happens. Daddy leaves a bucket of kerosene next to the stove. Ma thinks it is a pail of water, and she uses it to make Daddy's coffee. It starts a fire instead. Ma runs out to get Daddy, and Billie Jo takes the pail, ready to dump it out the door. Just as she throws it out the door, Ma is coming back inside, so the flaming kerosene lands on Ma, setting her on fire. Billie Jo tries to rescue her, slapping out the flames with her hands. They are both severely burned.

Ma lingers for days in extreme pain, badly burned, and then she delivers the baby, a boy. Ma dies in the process, although it's not clear whether it is from the trauma of the burns combined with the birth or whether she would have died in childbirth anyway. Aunt Ellis comes to take the baby to be with her, but he also dies.

Life becomes a deep, empty hole for Billie Jo at this point. She and her father are both grieving and hurting, but they cannot talk to or help each other. Billie Jo is not only hurting inside. Her burned hands are painful, but she has to take on the roles of cooking and cleaning, which intensifies her pain. Almost as if to make the abstract hole of death and loss a reality, Daddy starts digging a big hole in the yard. He claims it is for a pond. It seems more likely that it is his way to heal.

For a long time, the world seems an endless cloud of dust, pain and despair. Billie Jo is in great pain, but she makes attempts at playing the piano again. Her hands hurt so much that it is too hard for her. Still, when a talent competition is announced, Billie Jo decides to use it to motivate her. She loves the music, and she struggles through the pain. She knows people blame her for Ma's death, and she knows they can't bear to see her deformed hands. When she performs at the competition, though, she is able to go to that place inside herself where there is only music. The crowd appreciates this and gives her a standing ovation. For a long time after winning third place, pain shoots up her arms, and she can't do anything.

Arley keeps encouraging her to try. Mad Dog seems to take an interest in her. Her father is shut down, though. Then, he decides to start venturing out to a night class to meet some ladies. Billie Jo isn't happy about this, but she accepts the fact that he may someday want to remarry.

Just when it seems things may be starting to look hopeful again, the worst dust storm arrives. Billie Jo and her father are on the way to a funeral, but when they can't go any farther they take refuge in a nearby home. Billie Jo realizes the value of everyone taking care of each other. Events seem to take Billie Jo from hope to despair again and again. She is asked to play piano for graduation at school, but she can't seem to make her hands work. Right after that, a great, long, soft rain soaks the ground with hope. Not long after that, the dust returns.

Worn down to the point where she just can't take it anymore, Billie Jo runs away, hops a train and heads west. It doesn't take her long to realize that she has made the wrong choice. Her greatest fear is being left alone, and she finds now that she is more alone than ever and that she has left her father alone. She returns home, where she and Daddy are able to reconcile and begin anew. Daddy has a girlfriend named Louise, and even though she doesn't want to betray Ma's memory, Billie Jo likes her. Soon, Louise and Daddy get married, and Billie Jo starts to learn the piano again. There is finally hope, which even the dust can't blow away.