HOUSE OF EARTH

Introduction: Johnny Depp & Douglas Brinkley

Tike and Ella live in Texas, in a wooden shack; they dream of a real house where they can protect themselves from the cold, the heat and the endless dust that fills every crevice. Thanks to an instruction booklet from the Ministry of Agriculture, Tike manages to acquire the knowledge necessary to build the coveted house out of earth and water; a house of earth. Both of them have become one with the land, as they live off it, working hard. However, powerful forces – among them the industrial agriculture trusts and the banks – are making their dream unattainable.

Woody Guthrie, the country music legend of interwar America, aside from his countless songs, he left behind a novel, unpublished until recently, which was discovered by historian Douglas Brinkley and co-published by him and Johnny Depp, who also wrote an excellent foreword. Among those who were not unmoved by House of Earth were the folklorist Alan Lomax, who urged Guthrie to complete it, and Bob Dylan, his most famous “brainchild”, who contributed to the restoration of the work. Written in 1947, it is a mural of America during the Great Depression, and another cry for human dignity. “This Land is Your Land”, Guthrie’s anthem, which has been engraved into the consciousness of the entire progressive world, found a perfect complement in House of Earth and shows us that the struggle for the soil we walk on, the water, the air is universal and timeless. In the end, a guitar and a book can become machines against fascism.