The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

February 27, 2021

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

In 1934, in the middle years of drought brought on by soil erosion, with the Great Depression in its fifth year, Elsa Martinelli makes the difficult decision to leave the family farm in Oklahoma and travel to California. Elsa's husband disappeared a few years earlier and Elsa believes he went to California following dreams of easy money. Their son is suffering from dust tuberculosis and the cleaner air in California is supposed to help. 

But California proves not to be the promised land - unable to find cheap housing, reduced to picking crops for low wages, the family is forced to live in a tent city. They experience grinding poverty, prejudice, and a number of other tragedies.

We all enjoy a good tearjerker now and again, but this was just too bleak. Nothing went right for the family and when Elsa finally does stand up for herself, it ends in tragedy. Her daughter Lorada has no absolutely redeeming qualities, and the sick son is a non-entity. The best characters in the book are Elsa's in-laws, Rosa and Tony Martinelli. They take Elsa in when she becomes pregnant with their son's child and her own parents throw her out (Elsa's parents also have no redeeming qualities). They are the first real family and love that Elsa has ever know.

I kept reading, hoping that something good happens or that there will be a happy ending, but it's all just so sad.

I am hit or miss with Kristin Hannah's books. Normally I'm not much into women's fiction, but I loved The Nightingale (which was more like historical women's fiction) and I moderated the book discussion at the library. The Great Alone was more like The Four Winds, bleak and depressing.

That's a dust storm blowing across the Great Plains behind the farm, not a mountain range

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an eARC.