We see her struggle against the message that she was unloved and unlovely and what it takes to awaken her to who she is and the lie she had accepted for so many years. The story centers around Elsa’s awakening to who she really is–her beauty, her voice, and her bravery. So many see Elsa’s beauty and spirit even when Elsa does not. She calls them the Martinelli Explorers Club, as they drive west, risking the dangers of the road only to find the desperate conditions of the migrant camps, the disdain with which they are all viewed by Californians, and the heartless corruption of growers who use force, credit slavery, and desperation to keep them laboring for ever decreasing wages.
She fights to hold onto her daughter Loreda, who blames her for Rafe’s abandonment of the family.Īgainst all that holds her to this family, she reluctantly leaves with her children to save Ant’s health. Elsa fights for their survival, and that of her in-laws. We watch the land die, the animals die, and Elsa’s young son, Ant, nearly die of dust pneumonia. The reader feels oneself living through the storms, breathing in the dust, developing hacking coughs, and watching one’s livelihood blown away. Then comes the drought and the dust storms.
She embraces their way of life, the hard manual labor of a farm, and discovers herself embraced by Rafe’s parents, if not so much by Rafe. The Martinellis are farmers in the Texas panhandle. It begins with sewing and an alluring dress, and setting out to find love–and she does, with Rafe Martinelli, who she ends up having to marry, abandoned by her own family. She also hears the words of her grandfather, a former Texas Ranger: “Be brave.” The rest of this book is Elsa’s struggle against the verdict that she is weak, unloved, and undesirable to be brave.
Suppressed by her successful father and overbearing mother, she takes refuge in her books–and dreams of someone who will love her. In my mind, this one holds its own with The Grapes of Wrath ( review), both in capturing the conditions of the Dust Bowl and the migrant camps in California, and in its lead character, Elsa Martinelli, who holds her own with Tom Joad.Įlsa was the sickly sister of two beautiful girls, taken out of school and confined to her home after contracting rheumatic fever. Written a book that gets inside your head, grips your heart and does not let go. Summary: Set in the Dust Bowl depression era, Elsa Martinelli grows from a timid girl to a mother whose fight for her children fulfills her grandfather’s exhortation to “be brave.”
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