I have always been fascinated with the history of the Dust Bowl and the Depression and Hannah brings it all alive. Confronted with the effects of man’s assault on the environment in the Texas Panhandle, the main character, Elsa Martinelli, has to weigh the decision of staying where she was raised and potentially starving or moving to California for a better life. The result is a constant affront on the lives of Elsa and her two children in a world that has little tolerance for outsiders and the afflicted. It is a story “of time and land and the indomitable will a a people.”
The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (List Price: $28.99, St. Martin’s Press, 9781250178602, February, 2021)
Reviewed by Easty Lambert-Brown, Ernest & Hadley Books in Tuscaloosa, Alabama