A Thousand Acres (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by Jane Smiley

Paperback, 1992

Collections

Your library, Fiction

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

Ballantine Books (1992), Edition: 1st Ballantine Bks Ed.,Nov.1992, Paperback, 400 pages

Description

Fiction. Literature. HTML:This powerful twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear centers on a wealthy Iowa farmer who decides to divide his farm between his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. Ambitiously conceived and stunningly written, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride�??and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humani

Media reviews

NY Times

Does this sound familiar? At the opening of Jane Smiley's latest novel, "A Thousand Acres," the narrator, a woman named Virginia Cook Smith, describes the farm in Zebulon County, Iowa, that she and her two younger sisters, Rose and Caroline, have grown up on: "Paid for, no encumbrances, as flat

and fertile, black, friable and exposed as any piece of land on the face of the earth." And then comes the shock of recognition. In 1979, the three sisters' father, Laurence (Larry) Cook, decides to form a corporation out of his farm holdings and give each of his daughters a third of it. What do they think of the plan? "It's a good idea," says the oldest, who is called Ginny. "It's a great idea," says the second daughter, Rose. "I don't know," says the youngest, Caroline, who is a lawyer. "You don't want it, my girl, you're out," says Larry to Caroline. "It's as simple as that." So the farm is divided into two instead of three, with Ginny and Rose to take turns looking after Larry. And a tragedy of ingratitude, madness and generational conflict begins. . . .

Show Less