Sanora Babb submitted her novel about the dust bowl, WHOSE NAMES ARE UNKNOWN to Random House in 1939. It was met by enthusiasm and a plan to publish by editor Bennett Cerf, but when Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH swept the nation, the manuscript was set aside because the market could not support two books on the subject. Almost 70 years later, this novel described by Cerf as "exceptionally fine" has finally been published.