A Thousand Acres

Description

Powerful twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear. This powerful twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear centers on a wealthy Iowa farmer who decides to divide his farm among his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will, which sets in motion a chain of events that brings dark truths to light. Ambitiously conceived and stunningly written, A Thousand Acres spins the most fundamental themes of truth, justice, love, and pride into a universally acclaimed masterpiece.

Jane Smiley is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and most recently, Golden Age, the concluding volume of The Last Hundred Years trilogy. She is also the author of five works of nonfiction and a series of books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. She lives in Northern California.

I still don't know how Smiley did it, the voices in A Thousand Acres are so raw and true, right from the first page. It's as if she has channelled them, rather than invented them. It has Biblical sweep - that broad sense of the epic - but Smiley is poignant on the daily-ness of life, cooking, cleaning and the way one sister feels when she finds she can't have children . * Independent * It's been almost 25 years since Smiley won the Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres. With the Last One Hundred Years trilogy, she surely confirms her place alongside Roth, Updike and Bellow as one of the truly great chroniclers of 20th-century American life. * Guardian *