“Elsa Wolcott had spent years in enforced solitude, reading fictional adventures and imagining other lives. In her lonely bedroom, surrounded by the novels that had become her friends, she sometimes dared to dream of an adventure of her own.”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are lines from the opening chapter of Kristin Hannah’s newest novel The Four Winds. Elsa’s yearning for adventure and love lead her to a shot gun wedding and a life of hard work on her husband’s family farm.
It begins in 1921 in Texas where Elsa embraces her new life, finding acceptance and love with her in-laws and her two children. By 1934 unbelievable hardship settles in: millions of unemployed and a terrible drought that makes it hard to sustain life. Elsa’s husband gives up and walks away from his family. When Elsa’s seven year old son almost dies from dust pneumonia Elsa has no choice but to take her children and head to California, advertised as the “land of plenty.” Once there, however they realize that jobs are hard to obtain, especially for “Oakies” and the big growers take advantage of those desperate for work.
This is a well written, but very depressing book. As the fly leaf says it is “a sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it - the harsh realities that divided a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots.” But also “a testament to hope, resilience and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity.”
If you’re looking for a vivid depiction of life in the West during the Great Depression, then you must read The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah.
