In this exquisitely rendered memoir set on the high plains of Texas, Pulitzer Prize winner Gail Caldwell transforms into art what it is like to come of age in a particular time and place. A Strong West Wind begins in the 1950s in the wilds of the Texas Panhandle-a place of both boredom and beauty, its flat horizons broken only by oil derricks, grain elevators, and church steeples. Its story belongs to a girl who grew up surrounded by dust storms and cattle ranches and summer lightning, who took refuge from the vastness of the land and the ever-present wind by retreating into books. What she found there, from renegade women to men who lit out for the territory, turned out to offer a blueprint for her own future. Caldwell would grow up to become a writer, but first she would have to fall in love with a man who was every mother's nightmare, live through the anguish and fire of the Vietnam years, and defy the father she adored, who had served as a master sergeant in the Second World War.

A Strong West Wind is a memoir of culture and history-of fathers and daughters, of two world wars and the passionate rebellions of the sixties. But it is also about the mythology of place and the evolution of a sensibility: about how literature can shape and even anticipate a life.

Caldwell possesses the extraordinary ability to illuminate the desires, stories, and lives of ordinary people. Written with humanity, urgency, and beautiful restraint, A Strong West Wind is a magical and unforgettable book, destined to become an American classic.

• We started tracking this book on January 11, 2011.
• This book was $8.25 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 58 times in the past 5,355 days.
• The current price of this book is $5.99 last checked 17 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past 90 days.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $4.99.
• The lowest price to date was $1.99 last reached on November 10, 2019.
• This book has been $1.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on May 14, 2024.
• This book has been $14.99 one time since we started tracking it.

• HistoryAmericasUnited StatesState & LocalSouth
• HistoryWomen in History
• Biographies & MemoirsWomen
• HistoryAmericas
• HistoryUnited StatesState & LocalSouth

• Publication Date: December 18, 2007
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 258 Pages
• File Size: 468 KB