The Four Winds

Kristin Hannah's relatively new book (2021) centers on one family experiencing the Dust Bowl in Texas. The years of relentless drought and wind destroy not only the land, but also the lives attached to it. "In 1921, Elsa Wolcott is a tall, bookish woman of 25 whose soul is stifled by her superficial parents. By 1934, after marrying Rafe Martinelli, a young Italian Catholic who was the first man to show her affection, Elsa is a mother of two who has found a home on her beloved in-laws' farm (Booklist)." "...the Martinelli farm is no longer thriving, but Elsa is attached to the land and her in-laws, and she works tirelessly and cares for her children, 12-year-old Loreda and seven-year-old Anthony. Her husband, Rafe, has become distant and something of a hard drinker, and ...he abandons them (Publishers Weekly). When Anthony develeops silicosis (dust pneumonia), Elsa is forced to leave her beloved inlaws and save her children by migrating to California. What awaits them is almost worse. Migrants have flooded west and resentful residents call them Okies, no matter where they came from. Employers are quick to cheat and exploit them. They are treated with condescension and scorn, forced to live in squalor, and paid pennies an hour for back-breaking work. Harper "convincingly portrays Elsa's coming of age from sheltered recluse to workers' rights champion (Library Journal). So many of the issues still resonate today. Hannah is an accomplished writer who lets you feel all the pain and sadness. I loved her first book, The Nightingale, and this book also features an incredibly strong, resilient woman; Kirkus says of her, "Elsa displays an iron core of character and courage..." But they also accurately note that this is "a saga of almost unrelieved woe."

The Lost Man

As with Jane Harper's previous 2 books, The Dry and Force of Nature, I found myself drawn in to this book, both intrigued and repelled by the setting in the Australian outback, which plays an enormous role in this story. I'm so far behind on posting my reading, that I will shamelessly allow one of the book's reviewers, Publishers Weekly, to do the plot legwork for me.

"Australia's outback, with its brutal climate and equally bruising isolation, looms as large as any character in this stark standalone ... For years, the three Bright brothers-divorced dad Nathan, the eldest; family man and everybody's favorite, middle child Cameron; and the mentally challenged youngest, Bub-have maintained an uneasy equilibrium on adjacent cattle ranches. That flies out the window the week before Christmas when Cameron goes missing; his desiccated corpse is subsequently discovered a few miles from his perfectly operational truck in the shadow of the eerie headstone known as the stockman's grave. Absent any clear indications of foul play, the local authorities undertake a perfunctory investigation, leaving a troubled Nathan to start asking questions that no one wants to answer. In the grim journey that follows, the surviving members of the Bright family must confront some devastating secrets. Harper's sinewy prose and flinty characters compel, but the dreary story line may cause some readers to give up before the jaw-dropping denouement."

Kirkus calls the book "A twisty slow burner by an author at the top of her game." The Guardian says of her characters that they provide a "small but fully realised cast." Booklist concludes their review: "The atmosphere is so thick you can taste the red-clay dust, and the folklore surrounding the mysterious stockman adds an additional edge to an already dark and intense narrative... a surprising ending that reveals how far someone will go to preserve a life worth living in a place at once loathed and loved." Library Journal favorably notes, "the Australian landscape looms large, and it's difficult to imagine the events in this novel playing out the same way anywhere else. Even if readers guess why Cam died, they're likely to be kept guessing the how and the who until the end."