Author Event with Kristin Hannah In Person

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.

About the Author
Kristin Hannah is an award-winning and bestselling author of more than 21 novels including the international
blockbusters, The Nightingale, The Great Alone, as well as The Four Winds, Winter Garden, Night Road, and Firefly Lane.

The film of Hannah’s much loved novel, The Nightingale, (published in 43 languages) starring Dakota Fanning and Elle Fanning, is slated for December 2021, and Netflix is releasing a 10-part series based on Firefly Lane in early February, 2021. Her last novel, The Great Alone, has also been optioned for the screen.

Kristin is a former-lawyer-turned writer who lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband. She can’t imagine a better career than writing every day and doesn’t miss practicing the law—or wearing high-heels to work. Kristin writes because it frees something in her and allows her to be the wife, mother, and friend she wants to be. Kristin’s work touches millions of people. Her novel, Firefly Lane, became a runaway bestseller in 2009, a touchstone novel that brought women together, and The Nightingale, in 2015 was voted a best book of the year by Amazon, Buzzfeed, iTunes, Library Journal, Paste, The Wall Street Journal and The Week. Additionally, the novel won the coveted Goodreads and People’s Choice Awards. The audiobook of The Nightingale won the Audiobook of the Year Award in the fiction category. Her #1 New York Times bestselling novel, The Great Alone won the 2018 Goodreads Best Historical Novel of the Year and appeared on numerous “Best Of” lists. Renowned for her strong women characters, Hannah’s books are read, discussed, and revered by book clubs all over the country.

Luis Alberto Urrea (conversation partner), a Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize finalist, is the author of 18 books, winning numerous awards for his poetry, fiction and essays. His latest novel, The House of Broken Angels, was a 2018 NYTimes Notable Book of the Year. Good Night Irene, a novel based on his mother’s WWII experiences in the Red Cross Clubmobile Corps, will be published May 30, 2023. Urrea lives in Naperville and is a distinguished professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago.