Betrayed by the Land – The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah

I've read a few of Kristin Hannah's novels, and found them middling to pretty good, but this one is a standout. I began by listening to the audiobook and got so involved that I wanted to speed up the pace, so I switched to the hardcover edition. I enjoyed both so much. 

Elsinore (Elsa) Wolcott was the eldest daughter in an upper middle class family, in a prosperous small town in the Texas Panhandle, and came of age in the early 1920s – but was deemed a spinster at 25, according to the mores of the time and setting. Due to an illness in her teens, the family viewed tall, slim, blue-eyed and reddish-blonde Elsa as delicate, unattractive and unsuitable for marriage. Her class-conscious parents and sister relegated Elsa to her upstairs bedroom in their comfortable home where she read novel after novel, embroidered and sewed. Other than that, she learned no domestic skills. She was an unloved outcast in her own home. Her life was dull and confining in every way and she keenly felt the lack of love and prospects for any kind of happy future.

Eventually her frustration led her to break free, despite her fearfulness, creating circumstances that propelled her into a very different setting. She became Elsa Martinelli, wife to Rafe, a young Italian-American man, mother of Loreda and Anthony, and daughter-in-law to his immigrant parents, Rose and Tony. Living on their remote farm, she gradually learned self-sufficiency and how to cook, bake, garden and care for the livestock. As immigrants and Catholics, the Martinellis were shunned by Elsa's parents, who had disowned her. Elsa embraced her new life and family.

When the Great Depression hit, the Martinellis, like most Americans, were its victims. Gradually their circumstances declined and when the Dust Bowl hit the Great Plains, the farm's topsoil blew away, and their wheat crop failed. Conditions became dire, with many on the edge of starvation, and other farm families they knew, their homes and farms foreclosed on, joined the tens of thousands of "Okies" heading west to California, where it was rumored that there were jobs for everyone – in what the rumors said was a latter day "land of milk and honey".

Elsa and thirteen-year-old Loreda were constantly at odds. Loreda made it clear that she adored her father, a dreamer, and constantly rebelled against and criticized her mother. She was not the first young girl to challenge her mother, but she was full of anger and frustration, and took them to extremes. As time passed, and the situation on the farm became more dire, the tension between mother and daughter escalated. When Rafe gave in to his own disappointments and deserted the family, each remaining member was heartbroken in their own way.

Eventually circumstances became so desperate that the Martinellis made the decision to abandon the farm and head for California, but only Elsa and the children ultimately made the journey. Her in-laws would not leave their land and home, so the three set off on the 1,000-mile journey...

This work of historical fiction presents the struggles of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl as experienced on America's farms and in its small towns, exemplified by the struggles and conflicts of the Martinellis. The breadlines, apple and pencil sellers, and other well-documented images of the Great Depression in the large cities, which many readers may have seen, are not a part of this book, which has much in common with John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath – though in fairness, the migrant camps, the exploited farmworkers, and other aspects of both novels are based on real events that occurred during that period. In addition, quick research on The Grapes of Wrath brings to light that Steinbeck himself may have taken some of his ideas from the notes of Sanora Babb, a California writer who worked for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), an arm of FDR's New Deal. Babb wrote her own novel, Whose Names Are Unknown, which was accepted for publication but dropped when The Grapes of Wrath came out first. I am planning a read of Babb's book, which was finally published in 2004 by the University of Oklahoma Press, and then I will make my own judgment.

Returning to The Four Winds, it is a powerful saga that commands the reader's attention. Elsa and Loreda are richly drawn characters. The depictions of the stifling Texas environment where Elsa grew up, and the Martinelli family's work to establish and maintain their farm, and then of the California agricultural conditions are almost photographically vivid. The emotional impact resonates throughout, and the beautifully executed plot ends with perfect resolution.

Stanley Tucci, You Could Fix This! Dinner in Rome: A History of the World in One Meal

This might be a poor translation of this non-fiction book, or perhaps it's just the author's writing style. I skipped around, got bored, but liked the final chapter – a discussion of the lemon, the tart citrus that brings flavor to so many foods, and perfumes the air with its scent of sunshine.

It is a clever concept – to lay out the history of Rome, the "Eternal City" through the foods eaten in one sitting. I love Italy and Italian food, have traveled there several times, the first a week spent mainly in the capital, and am a generally a fan of the genres of food writing as well as travel writing. Perhaps a more skillful or entertaining author/presenter could have done more with this idea – my choice would be Stanley Tucci, who has presented such a wonderful CNN series on Italian locations and their food, and written several several delightful cookbooks and a memoir. If only Stanley could step in here and add the humor and charm this book so badly needs, and turn it into something far more palatable.

Jann Wenner Touts Male Privilege in Popular Culture – Like a Rolling Stone, a Memoir

I have such mixed feelings about this book. If I rate it for the quality of the writing and what I learned from it, it's quite positive, but for the personal appeal of the author, let's just say I'd never want to meet him.

Jann Wenner founded the magazine Rolling Stone back in the late '60s and built it into an important powerhouse of music reviews, politics, and cultural comment. Reading about his life and the evolution of his journalism career was simultaneously fascinating and infuriating.

Fascinating, for his insider's perspective, because I too was young (though some years younger than Wenner) through the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the three decades that represent the heyday of the magazine's development, and a fan of some of the musicians and others that populated his world. What I found most interesting of all was his friendship with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, which seemed initially like an improbable class and culture clash, but in the reading, it became clear just how connected Wenner became with some of the most iconic people of his time – not just those in rock music.

The infuriating aspect struck me some 100 pages in – just how evident what an old boys' club the music business and the magazine itself, like so many others, was and generally is. Certainly, I knew that, but he brought it home so clearly. Women musicians and journalists did not appear much in Wenner's massive book. He described Bette Midler as a close friend, and mentioned a few occasions in which she performed a song at a social gathering, but there is nothing much about her illustrious career, or her smash albums like The Divine Miss M. He briefly touched on Janis Joplin (mostly her death by overdose), Joan Baez's name cropped up a couple of times, and Judy Collins exactly once, but where were Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, or other music-making women of the era, like Karen Carpenter, Laura Nyro, and Cass Elliot? Even Carole King failed to appear, despite her enormous impact on popular music. Her album, Tapestry, was number one for months and a best-seller for years; and of course she wrote "You've Got a Friend", which helped shoot James Taylor's career into the stratosphere, where it still hovers decades later. Wenner stressed his close ties and friendships with some of the very biggest male names in music: Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, and Bono, and wrote extensively about them. When he wrote about Yoko Ono, it was usually in the context of her relationship and marriage to Lennon.

The woman who figured most in the development of the magazine was photographer Annie Leibovitz, but while on one hand he touted her brilliance, he alternatively spared no detail of her drug use and addiction. He wrote extensively about the drug and alcohol habits and destructiveness (his own and otherwise) of many, including Keith Richards, but he really savaged Leibovitz.

Wenner discussed his sexual confusion and ambivalence from early on, but eventually came out as gay. He described the developments of his evolution in depth. He seems content, but I felt so sorry for his wife, Jane, who was with him for decades, and with whom he had three sons. He eventually left her for a man, Matt Nye, who was quite a bit younger. Their relationship is long term, and now a married one. They had three additional children via artificial insemination with an unknown woman (or women, not disclosed). He mentioned occasionally about how hurtful it all was for Jane, and the book is full of painful public revelations about their relationship and family. I can't imagine how it must be for her, and even though he writes something of what he deems her acceptance of the circumstances, it makes me sad for her.

Like so many men, privileged like Wenner, or not, straight or gay, he is essentially misogynistic but doesn't recognize it – to some degree that makes him a product of his times and culture, but it is not something that can be easily overlooked. Women's contributions in his field and at his former media empire were diminished, or demeaned as with Leibovitz. He tries to excuse himself and portray himself somewhat differently, but when he mentions perhaps halfway through that he was adding women writers to his previously all-male staff, it felt condescending and false. I considered returning the book to the library at that point, but since I had already invested so much time, I continued, with growing wariness.

However, it is a memoir, and highly personal, so as such it covers his life, career, and relationships from his perspective, but it is a forceful reminder of how women have been treated marginally in music and journalism, and that is something that can’t be ignored.

Carole King Reflected on Burt Bacharach – the Generosity of an Exceptional Woman of Music

Carole King, long an icon of popular music as a composer, lyricist, and performer, and now past 80 herself, wrote a wonderful and moving tribute to Burt Bacharach, her fellow composer and former Tin Pan Alley denizen, who passed away last week aged 94.

The piece, which appeared recently in the Washington Post in the opinion section, related her personal experience, describing her first time hearing his "Walk On By" on the radio, as sung by Dionne Warwick, who became the primary interpreter of his songs, though of course there were many others.

It was laudatory of his brilliant work, and I completely agree that Bacharach was an extraordinary composer and musician: I loved his songs and there were so many wonderful ones.

https://wapo.st/3YKuc3V

With Bacharach's career so widely covered by the press, and the multitude of tributes (well-deserved) to his career, I got to thinking how men did, and still, predominate in the music world. There are many extremely talented women across the genres of music, be they rock, pop, classical, R & B, jazz...but compared to the men, how many do we regularly hear of? Yes, of course, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga are widely covered and award-winning, along with some others like Adele, but yet, the men still seem to rule.

Coincidentally, I just finished reading Like a Rolling Stone, Jann S. (don't forget the middle initial) Wenner's memoir of his creation and development of the magazine Rolling Stone. Wenner founded the magazine back in the late '60s, and it was an important powerhouse of music reviews, politics, and cultural comment. Yet what struck me maybe 100 pages in, was what an old boys' club the music business and the magazine itself, like so many others, was and is. Carole King, as just one example, never appeared, despite her enormous impact on popular music.

Bacharach's brilliance should be celebrated and remembered, and I'll continue to enjoy appreciate the his many songs, but not forgetting that many of his collaborators were women, including one of his former wives, Carole Bayer Sager, an accomplished and award-winning lyricist, and performers like Warwick and the late Karen Carpenter. What I'll also think of is King's expansive tribute, which was a great piece of writing, and so generous.