#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER #1 USA TODAY BESTSELLER#1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER#1 INDIE BESTSELLER”The Four Winds seems eerily prescient in 2021 . . . Its message is galvanizing and hopeful: We are a nation of scrappy survivors. We’ve been in dire straits before; we will be again. Hold your people close.”—The New York Times“A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the … close.”—The New York Times
“A spectacular tour de force that shines a spotlight on the indispensable but often overlooked role of Greatest Generation women.”—People
“Through one woman’s survival during the harsh and haunting Dust Bowl, master storyteller, Kristin Hannah, reminds us that the human heart and our Earth are as tough, yet as fragile, as a change in the wind.” —Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing
From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them.
“My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.”
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 indelible 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 could not put this book down! I really loved it! I also felt that it shows that history continues to repeat itself on the way that people treat each other!
The story takes place during the Depression Dust Bowl Era. Elsa is married and living on a farm with her husband. She has a low self esteem because of her parents, but must make hard choices and fight for the lives of her children as the dust bowl continues. A historical novel!
Don’t miss another one by Kristen Hannah. Stays with you.
Outstanding book!!!
I didn’t think I would like this book at first because of it being set in the 1930s. I ended up really enjoying it. I would definitely recommend this book!! It was really interesting to see what went on during that time.
The very best book I’ve read in a long time!!
I have read most of Kristen Hannah’s books and usually love them.. As always she is excellent writer. I’ve read a number of non-fiction books about the “Dust Bowl” and have seen several documentaries. Both my husband and I have family members who came west during that time to look for work and a better life…which they obtained.
I found The Four Winds to be depressing and had to slog my way through it. The only hope that seemed to be in the book was communist ideals. I don’t believe that works for any country. The book was violent, sad and joyless. I gave it two stars because the writing was excellent. If I’d known then, what I know now I would not have wasted my time or money.
The Four Winds is about a family living through the era of The Great Depression and The Dust Bowl. The Dust Bowl destroyed farmland as vast as several states with no rain in sight and a grave drought that parched their land.
The Martinelli’s, the mother and two children, have no choice but to follow the thousands of people leaving their farmland and their lives behind. They head to California where they are told there are jobs.
Another great book by Kristan Hannah. This is a touching story of this family and their hardship, despair, struggle, and strength for survival. I liked this book right from the start. It captivates until the end. It is fast paced and well written. I recommend it.
Thank you @Netgalley for this ARC. This is my honest review.
Best book I’ve ever read. Get the tissues ready you will need them. Elsa is my hero. She is the strongest person I’ve ever read about. Everyone needs to read this book.
It gave a fairly realistic picture of the Great Depression and the dust bowl. It also showed that very little has changed since that era. There are still the same haves treating the have nots badly, and it doesn’t matter whether they are immigrants or American born.
4.5 Stars!
This was heartbreaking, informative, exhausting, and inspiring. All in the best ways.
When asked, I always say that the 1930’s are one of my favorite historical eras to read about in fiction (as well as nonfiction) and this book embodied so much of why that’s true. The hardships, tenaciousness of spirit, and sacrifices spoke boldly of what Americans endured during that time. It also spoke to tragedy, classism, and fear. Hannah didn’t hold back from revealing the worst in people, but she also revealed some of the best like the main protagonist and those she worked alongside. I loved Elsa and her work ethic, as well as her desire to persevere for the sake of her children. Four Winds wasn’t a light and breezy read, but it was captivating and emotionally moving. Like many others that I have read about this era, it will stick with me.
one of Kristan Hannah’s best
An inspirational, sweeping story about The Great Depression and the almost unbelievable stories of the dust bowl. Typical Kristin Hannah read. Strong women, emotional stakes, and a tear-filled ending.
With a heart-wrenching depiction of the Depression Era Dust Bowl in the American Plains in the 1930’s, we first meet hapless twenty-five-year-old virginal Elsa Wolcott in 1921 Texas—gangly and deemed embarrassingly unattractive and therefore, unloved and ostracized from family activities by her parents and beautiful sisters—who
Heartrending & beautiful Dust Bowl elegy. Raised as a recluse in a house without love, former rich girl Elsa stumbles out into the world when she’s about to become a mother. A selfless immigrant family teaches her what it means to tend things–the land, her loved ones, and eventually herself. She grows from a timid girl, who has learned how to be invisible, to a warrior, brave enough to take on any challenge to provide a life and future for her children.
I found the growth of the mother daughter dynamic with Rose, Elsa, and Loreda especially powerful. “Her story—which is the story of a time and land and the indomitable will of a people—is my story; two lives woven together, and like any good story, ours will begin and end and begin again.”
Eventually, Elsa becomes one with the downtrodden that society has overlooked and finds her voice in speaking out for them. Politics aside, touching scenes of kindness and sacrifice amidst suffering and loss had me tearing up. At times lyrical, at times gritty. A must-read.
Well researched and informative story of one woman’s struggle for survival during the dust bowl and depression. Worth the read.
I read this in 2 days! I loved it although a tragic story. Another excellent book by Kriten Hannah!
Though World Events Bring Hardships, Hope and Love Remain
I’ve seen my grandparents’ photos from the Great Depression, of their small gray wooden farmhouse, free of paint and surrounded by nothing but dust, of the sedan loaded with their four children, one of them my father, and every personal item they could fit into and tie onto the car, of the dust bowl they left behind to drive to Oregon and start a new life. They never talked about it, but we knew they were greatly affected by that period in history, mostly by how frugal they were with money and how their garage and bedrooms were full of items they hoarded, a practice they would never break after living through the Depression. But I was never able to FEEL my family’s pain during that period.
In The Four Winds, Kristin Hannah made me FEEL life during the drought and dust bowl of the 1930s, living on American land that no longer produced harvests, the hunger, poverty, and hopelessness. Her story swept me into a family who loved their land and was so strong that they would not give up on their home though it had turned to nothing but dust. Her words made me FEEL how the Great Depression left so many people out of work, how painful the decision was to finally abandon their homes and head west in hopes of finding work and a better life. Hope and love kept people going.
Without spoiling the story, I quote Kristin Hannah in her Author Notes, “Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine that the Great Depression would become so relevant in our modern lives, that I would see so many people out of work, in need, frightened by the future.”
The Four Winds reminds us that, though world events bring hardships, there is hope and love.
It is written so well you can feel the dust. She just gets better and better.
I enjoyed Four Winds, it was very accurate to the struggle for life in those years. At my age I want to read for pleasure so the ending really bothered me.
Well researched, troubling, real but I hated the ending. In times of Covid not a good fit for me