THE FOUR WINDS

The high walls of poverty and its isolation, the humiliation of failure, sickness, debt, are the ingredients of 16 year old Gene Hardin's story of his Irish-Catholic family farming in Kansas. Forced from parochial school because of lack of funds, Gene sees his parents lose their land, attempt, against loans and notes, to make a living from a new place, odd jobs, facing defeat at every turn; watches his brother Dugan become a wastrel, selfish and cruel: his sister driven from home because of the need of a face operation, and his young brother Rob die because of lack of medical care. Gene, after any kind of job he can get, learns the hard path of labor on a road gang and runs off to the West in hopes that there he can be of some help to his parents. The violence of despair, as well as ancestry, the unbreakable confines of farm economics, the downward spiral of family fortunes -- make a harsh, honest, outspoken picture.