Things Fall Apart

Okonkwo feels a cold shiver down his back when he remembers the year when the drought and the hard rains that followed left the yam harvest with nothing but rotten yams.

That year the harvest was sad, like a funeral, and many farmers wept as they dug up the miserable and rotting yams. One man tied his cloth to a tree branch and hanged himself.
Okonkwo remembered that tragic year with a cold shiver throughout the rest of his life. It always surprised him when he thought of it later that he did not sink under the load of despair.