Windfall, Erika Bolstad
Windfall, Erika Bolstad
5 Rating(s)
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Windfall
The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her

Author: Erika Bolstad

Narrator: Marni Penning

Unabridged: 10 hr 12 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/24/2023

Synopsis

At first, Erika Bolstad knew only one thing about her great-grandmother, Anna: she was a homesteader on the North Dakota prairies in the early 1900s before her husband committed her to an asylum under mysterious circumstances. As Erika's mother was dying, she revealed more: their family still owned the mineral rights to Anna's land?and oil companies were interested in the black gold beneath the prairies. Their family, Erika learned, could get rich thanks to the legacy of a woman nearly lost to history. Anna left no letters or journals, and very few photographs of her had survived. But Erika was drawn to the young woman who never walked free of the asylum that imprisoned her. As a journalist well versed in the effects of fossil fuels on climate change, Erika felt the dissonance of what she knew and the barely-acknowledged whisper that had followed her family across the Great Plains for generations: we could be rich. Desperate to learn more about her great-grandmother and the oil industry that changed the face of the American West forever, Erika set out for North Dakota to unearth what she could of the past. What she discovers is a land of boom-and-bust cycles and families trying their best to eke out a living in an unforgiving landscape, bringing to life the ever-present American question: What does it mean to be rich?

About Erika Bolstad

Erika Bolstad is an author and a freelance journalist based in Portland, Oregon. For more information, visit ErikaBolstad.com.

About Marni Penning

Marni Penning is an award-winning actress, voiceover artist, and producer who loves narrating cozy mysteries, sweet romances, and books that have a bit of quirky snark.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Erika on May 15, 2024

I'm the author and I loved every minute of working on this book—from the moment I first stepped foot in North Dakota in 2013 in search of Anna. I hope you all will love reading Windfall as much as I loved writing it!......more

Goodreads review by Bam cooks the books on January 15, 2023

I was attracted to this memoir because of my own interest in genealogy and Bolstad's desire to learn more about her great-grandmother Anna, who claimed a plot of land in North Dakota under the Homestead Act in the early 1900s. Unfortunately within a year or so, after having married and given birth t......more

Goodreads review by Karren on December 15, 2022

Erika Bolstad is a freelance journalist, when her mother passes away, she discovers her mum owns a share of the mineral rights to Erika’s great-grandmothers land. With very little information to go by, Erika starts investigating the lives of her great-grandmother Anna and her great-great-grandmother......more

Goodreads review by Dana on March 07, 2023

Windfall doesn't read like a traditional memoir and that's where I struggled with this book. It's very heavy on facts relating to climate change and the oil industry. It felt much more research driven than a personal account for the majority of the book. I did enjoy the parts of the book where the a......more

Goodreads review by Beary Into Books on January 31, 2023

Wasn't what I thought it would be. Started out strong but then became very dry. I struggled to get into it. Love the beautiful cover though. Thank you so much for the gifted copy. All thoughts and opinions are my own.......more

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