Published in 2022, this book became a runaway, international best seller and I can see why. It tells a devastatingly gritty story rooted in real events and the characterisation is wonderful. Very loosely it visits the same ground as The Grapes of Wrath, one of the most powerful novels of the entire 20th century but, unlike John Stenbeck’s masterpiece, this one ends on a note of (tearful) hope.
Elsa is the daughter of a prosperous family in a small town in 1920s Texas but, partly because of a childhood illness she is cruelly marginalised. When she sneaks out for a liaison with a glamorous young American Italian and the inevitable happens her parents reject her completely. Rafe’s farming family take her in and slowly they become the family she has never had – stronger than ever when Rafe leaves and she is abandoned with two young children.
The real action, however, kicks off in 1934 when Texas is hit by, what turned out to be, several years of drought, dust storms and devastation on top of the disastrous economic effects of the 1929 Wall Street Crash. In the end, in desperation, Elsa takes her children away from the “Dust Bowl” to California in search of a better life. But, of course, things get ever worse. The downwards spiral is relentless.
The novel is very good indeed at evoking the smells, sounds and sensations of life in those places at that time. I could feel the gritty dust between my toes, hear the howling winds destroying farm buildings and taste the lovely food Elsa and her Italian mother-in-law cook together before things get too bad. And as for the experience of a shower or bath after months without, I was in the water with them. I also learned a lot of geography.
Hannah’s novel is partly about injustice. In California greedy farm owners are exploiting migrant workers to pick their cotton. The pay rate keeps going down. The workers – if they’re fortunate enough to be housed on site – are effectively slaves because they have little cash and are obliged to buy over-priced food on credit from the owner’s shop. All this is well documented in history.
So is the movement which rebelled against the cruelty of the system. The authorities regarded the “Reds” who were trying to get the workers to strike, as pernicious and there was a lot of violence. Hannah’s character Jack, who epitomises all, this is beautifully done: sincere, charismatic, decent. And he becomes the first person ever to recognise Elsa’s true worth. When you’ve been conditioned from infancy to regard yourself as unattractive and useless, self esteem is a very fragile thing.
Immigration is still very topical in 2026. People leave their homes because life, for whatever reason, has become untenable. So, in their thousands, they risk everything to travel to somewhere they believe to be better. In many part so the world they are then met with hostility, prejudice and exploitative practices. I thought a lot about things which are going on now while I was reading The Four Winds,
A major theme in this fine novel is the relationship between mothers and daughters. Elsa’s birth mother disregarded and then disowned her. Her mother-in-law Rose becomes the mother she has never had. And Elsa’s daughter Lareda, pubescent at the point they leave for California, is central to her life. She’s a troubled, angry young woman, given to screaming in frustration at her “failed” mother but Elsa loves her unconditionally and, eventually, mutual understanding and respect develops.
It doesn’t end as I expected (hoped?) but you reach the final page, knowing that, thank goodness, there’s some positivity for the future.
At another level this fine novel is a real page turner. I gobbled its 460 pages in less than three days. I shall now explore the author’s other novels.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
