I started The Four Winds one evening about 9:00 PM intending to read just enough to put me to sleep. Meaning, like 5-10 minutes. Well, I finally closed the last chapter at almost 4:00 AM that same night and had no regrets. I was completely transported to a time and place I knew nothing about. It was 1921 in the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl. The Great Depression. This is the story of the life and strife of a family and a brave American woman in pursuit of the American dream. This is another rare book that will stay with me for a very long time, and one I find myself bringing up to anyone who will listen. Even if you’ve read a hundred books set in this era, I think you’ll find the Four Winds and Elsa’s story be a unique and memorable perspective.
Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows.
By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive.
In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa- like so many of her neighbors – must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family.
The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it – the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelibele portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.
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I am reading this right now and had the exact same experience! Read half of it the first night I started, it is SO well written, transporting, and informative. A new favorite for sure.