{"id":3325,"date":"2025-02-15T19:38:48","date_gmt":"2025-02-16T03:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=3325"},"modified":"2025-02-15T19:41:41","modified_gmt":"2025-02-16T03:41:41","slug":"review-the-four-winds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=3325","title":{"rendered":"Review: The Four Winds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I found a lot to like in Kristin Hannah&#8217;s <em>The Four Winds<\/em>, a historical fiction set in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/BBC\/mouldering09.html#m09-t\">Dust Bowl<\/a>. It&#8217;s pretty much impossible to take that on without inviting comparisons to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=830\">Steinbeck<\/a>, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hannah&#8217;s book isn&#8217;t about the Dust Bowl, but about specific characters in the Dust Bowl.  Her characters are interesting and believable, though I do find them a bit broadly drawn.  I find them very easy to get to know and identify with, but not unforgettable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Dust Bowl takes them from Texas to California along paths that many at the time were forced down.  I think Hannah balances making the era come alive for readers and making the events into a story that shapes her characters.  I can see the outlines of the country&#8217;s plight, but she is committed to the view on the ground and the reactions of her characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I like the character-driven approach and was happy to see some closure in the story.  These are hard times and for much of the book sympathetic characters are taking a lot of abuse from the world and their fellow people.  These folks find a way to escape the worst of the times, but in a way that&#8217;s specific to them.  I want there to be answers for everyone, but that&#8217;s not this book.  And probably not the real world, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s an interesting, well-written historical fiction.  The hard parts are pretty bleak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Recommended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I found a lot to like in Kristin Hannah&#8217;s The Four Winds, a historical fiction set in the Dust Bowl. It&#8217;s pretty much impossible to take that on without inviting comparisons to Steinbeck, of course. Hannah&#8217;s book isn&#8217;t about the Dust Bowl, but about specific characters in the Dust Bowl. Her characters are interesting and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3327,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3325\/revisions\/3327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}