new novel opening - please comment

 “Even before the Great Depression, Boonetown of southwest Missouri had been ripe with rolling hills; stolid farmers; painfully watered crops and garden rows; paint-peeling houses, barns and wood-slat sheds; a single-track right-of-way through the center of town and rut-paved main street with few commercial concerns. All now were baked to a dull beige-gray in the August heat. And, beneath that coated surface, stolid farmers writhed in discontent, frustration, fear and hatred for what the past had dealt and the future had barely promised and now in 1940, threatened.”

Is this too stark? If you opened my new novel before i’d be, and this was the beginning, would you keep reading? Any suggestions? I would so appreciate hearing from you. Thx, mj