Richard Kilroy O'malley

Hobo: a Depression Odyssey Richard Kilroy O'malley

At the height of the Great Depression the narrator loses his job in the Butte copper mines and leaves home to look for work despite the fact that there are eighteen million unemployed and his chances are slim. He hoboes 10,000 miles throughout the West, stealing rides in boxcars and passenger trains, hitchhiking on the roads. He stops at hobo jungle and Hoovervilles, encounters sadistic railroad security and - always capitalized - the Law. He digs potatoes for a quarter a day, washes cars for a penny each, boxes in a carnival for two dollars a fight. He is picked up as a vagrant, beds down in a brothel, watches a hanging, and winds up in the county jail on suspicion of murder. Because his story is largely autobiographical, every word rings true. He is a Depression-era pilgrim and the people he meets comprise the face of America in despair. There are authentic and persuasive portraits of people trying to find their way through one of the most desperate times in history. O'Malley's graphic, first-hand account will tell you what it was really like.