The Four Winds

Image courtesy: Goodreads

 Texas Panhandle, 1921. Elsa is the eldest daughter of the wealthy Wolcott family in the fast growing town of Dalhart. Like the proverbial ugly duckling, Elsa is shunned by her parents and prettier sisters and confined to her room to save the family from embarrassment - and at 25, is well on her way to spinsterhood. But Elsa dares to dream - of a home of her own, a child to love, and even, perhaps, a career - and she knows that 'if she didn't do something soon, something drastic', she would be doomed to spend the rest of her life under her parents' roof!

Her defiance comes in the form of a daring red, silk dress and a visit to a local speak-easy - where she meets Rafe, who seems to have walked out of the pages of the romance novels Elsa loves to read. But life is not a romance novel - and Elsa is quickly disowned by her horrified parents when they find out she's expecting. Forced into a loveless marriage with Rafe, Elsa finds the silver lining in the situation through her loving in-laws, and the land they own. 

Happily ever after, Elsa? Well, we're in the middle of a Kristin Hannah novel - so I can say with absolute certainty that Elsa has many more mountains to climb! This first part is all about setting up Elsa as a stoic, always sacrificing herself for her family's happiness, always finding ways to 'disappear'. I have to say, I don't get the whole Wolcott family dynamic - can a parent, especially a mother, really not love he child because she is ugly? What happened to a face that only a mother could love? Also, why did they force her to get married? Why didn't they have her 'go away', have the child, and then return with none the wiser? So many questions...

Anyway, back to the story. We next meet Elsa and her family in 1934 - right in the middle of the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl era. Over-farming, soil depletion and a devastating absence of rain have changed the fertile plains into a cracked and parched land. No crops can grow, animals are dying, and to add to the despair - vicious dust storms that last for days sweep through, literally filling everything and everyone up with dust. Elsa is soon faced with an agonizing choice - stay, and die of starvation and 'dust pneumonia' - or set forth into the great unknown, head to California - the promised land of milk and honey. 

I really wish Elsa had made the choice to stay. No, really. I get that her son was literally dying, and there was no food or water - but the story of surviving the drought and fighting for the land she loved, that I would have loved to read! Instead, Elsa decides to pack up her truck and take to the highway - and there we are, smack dab in the middle of an airbrushed version of 'Grapes of Wrath'. Steinbeck's spare prose makes the Woad's journey and subsequent disillusionment unforgettable - and the inevitable comparison makes Hannah's version seem a little too fluffy. All the boxes are checked, the horrifying squalor of the migrant settlements, the evil landowners and their greed, the sneering locals dismissive of the Okies, even the flash flood - but most situations are almost too easily resolved for Elsa and her children.

Oh the children. Hannah never really explains why Elsa's daughter, Loreda, turns on her with such venom. The nuances of the mother-daughter relationship are never explored. Elsa simply assumes that Loreda is rejecting her like all the people she has loved in her life. I get that the author wants to show Elsa as a noble, long-suffering martyr - but there's a point when that really becomes too annoying. Reminded me of an iconic Gulzar dialog from the movie Ijaazat - "Phir wohi sacrifice, sacrifice, all the time" - just absolutely made for Elsa! And the little boy, Ant - why was he so clueless? 

The part that struck home for me was the whole 'them vs us' sentiment that runs through the book. Although the setting is in the 1930s, almost a hundred years later, we find this country dealing with the same discontent and inequality. The fear that migrants will take over, that the migrants are a threat to our safety, that their lack of morals will destroy our society - how many times have we heard this rhetoric recently? A character in the book asks - 'This is America - how could this be happening here?' - how many times have we asked ourselves that same question recently? It really is true that the only thing we learn from history is to never learn from history.

Social message aside, this really is Elsa's story - and her long (very long) journey to find her voice and to stand up for herself. It is a grim narrative - but I kept reading, hoping for Elsa to find her happily ever after. And when she didn't - no, absolutely not, no way I cried. Well, maybe just a little. Yes, I did - I cried at the ending - there, I've said it! 

'Grapes of Wrath' this is not - definitely worth a read, though! Happy reading!