Nora Lange’s ‘Us Fools’ looks at outcast sisters growing up in the 1980s

It can be difficult to explain just how ruinous the 1980s farm crisis was to those who aren’t old enough to remember it. 

A combination of factors — an increase in land values that wouldn’t last, general inflation, and the 1979 grain embargo against the Soviets, among others — sparked the crisis, which resulted in countless farmers losing their land, businesses and banks closing for good, and families in the American heartland breaking up.

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The crisis forms the backdrop for “Us Fools,” the debut novel from Nora Lange. The book follows Joanne and Bernadette, two sisters growing up on a farm in Illinois in the 1980s. Their parents, never overly attentive to begin with, are distracted by their economic woes, leaving the two girls to raise themselves. 

Lange, the descendant of generations of Midwestern farmers, was a child during the crisis. The topic doesn’t come up much among the people she was raised by — and with — in the ‘80s.

“It’s not like people forgot,” she says. “It’s just not anything that anyone really talks about. People in that part of the world, they’re busy with the day-to-day. It’s just one foot in front of the other in a lot of ways.”

Lange’s novel, published by the indie press Two Dollar Radio, has resonated with readers, including one who knows a great deal about the Midwest in the ‘80s, Jane Smiley, author of “A Thousand Acres.” In a review, Smiley praised Lange’s novel as “quite remarkable.” “Us Fools” was also named a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction earlier this year.

Lange spoke about “Us Fools” via telephone from Los Angeles, where she lived for several years; she has since moved to Salt Lake City. This conversation has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.

Q: When the idea for this novel came to you, did one of the sisters show up to you first?

No, they showed up, amazingly, at the exact same time, which is part of why they were hard to ignore. I heard them at the same time. I was living in Chicago at the time, working at a textile factory, and I would get home from work and I’d be tired and trying to nap, and I would hear these two disruptive characters in my head, and they were simultaneous. One would say one thing, the other would say something contrarian, and then it would just go on from there. And then my nap was a total failure.

For a long time, I wasn’t even sure. It took me a while to figure out that they were definitely just two distinct people. I was like, “Maybe this is the same person, but they have different thoughts. I don’t know.” I just went through these different phases of trying to understand each of their voices. They’re two separate people, but it did take a minute to see them fully.

Q: The sisters call themselves “junk kids.” What does that mean to them?

They’re rejects. It’s kind of like being punk, but they’re beyond punk. They’re just kind of junky. They smell, they crave trash food. But I feel like they embrace this. It came up the other day, a friend of mine, I was in conversation with another fellow writer, and it kind of reminded me of “Gummo,” Harmony Korine’s movie. I wasn’t thinking of “Gummo” at all, but have I seen it? Of course. And did I grow up on Harmony Korine, and did it have an impact? A hundred percent. So I think there is a lineage there where they’re just these reject kids, these outcasts, even if some of it’s of their own making. I think that’s an interesting question too: How much do we separate ourselves, or how much are other people pushing us aside? Are we our own worst enemy?

Q: At one point in the book, Jo says that she and Bernie are “continual inheritors of defect.” Do you think there’s any element of self-fulfilling prophecy there?

I feel like that by calling themselves that, they’re resigning, but it’s playful. But I also think that underneath that, there’s a lot of pain. It’s a celebration, but it’s also a way of celebrating this way of coping, too. Whether or not they want to defy this kind of legacy-slash-curse, I don’t know. So it’s a playful resignation in a weird way, but I think sometimes people do that when they don’t know what their way out is. 

Q: Another author who wrote about Midwestern farm families is Jane Smiley, and she gave a glowing review of the book. What’s it like to get a review like that from someone who knows your part of the country so well?

I am totally in awe. I am honored. Maybe this is just a personal trait for me, but I honor the past. Sometimes I feel like we’re not taking enough time, we’re downloading breathing apps, but we’re not actually looking at what it means to be in touch. But writers are in dialogue with other writers. Even if it’s my first book, it’s not like this book isn’t in dialogue with so many books from ones that were written by people [in the past].