Erika Bolstad will be signing her debut novel, “Windfall” The Prairie Woman Who Lost Her Way and the Great-Granddaughter Who Found Her, Saturday, May 6 from 1-4 p. m. at Books On Broadway, Williston.
Books on Broadway owner Chuck Wilder highly recommends this book as it is a family history and a great example of the oil boom in this area. “Ms. Bolstad has visited this area researching the family history and mineral ownership in Divide County. Her great-grandmother homesteaded in Larson, ND. It’s a very readable and enjoyable book,” he says.
According to a press release, “Windfall” is one intrepid journalist’s search for her long-lost great-grandmother on the American prairie. At first, the only thing Bolstad knew about her great-grandmother, Anna, was that she was a homesteader in the early 1900s before being committed to an asylum under mysterious circumstances. After the passing of Bolstad’s mother, a windfall found its way to her – her family still owned the mineral rights to Anna’s land, and oil companies were bidding for the black gold beneath the prairies.
Bolstad was drawn to the mystery of her ancestor and as a journalist well versed in the effects of fossil fuel and climate change, she felt a dissonance between what she knew of her great-grandmother and the environmental damage inflicted by the oil industry. Setting out for the North Dakota prairies, Bolstad discovers a land of boom-and-bust cycles and a woman trying to eke out a living in an unforgiving landscape. She brings to life the ever-present American question: What does it mean to be rich?
Erika Bolstad is a journalist and documentary filmmaker based in Portland, OR. Her work on climate change has appeared in the Washington Post, Scientific American, Climatewire, and many other publications. This is her first book.
If you are unable to attend the signing, please call 701-572-1433 to reserve your signed copy.
Books On Broadway is located at 12½ E. Broadway, Williston. Stop by, call, or email [email protected].
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