#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 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.
