A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

In 1992, Jane Smiley won the Pulitzer Prize for her astonishing novel ‘A Thousand Acres.’ Rereading this novel heightened my admiration for this literary gem. Smiley’s ability to inhabit her characters is deep and nuanced. The book is tragic, but Smiley’s psychological acumen is remarkable. The story’s themes touch on aging, power, repression, competition, and control, but mostly the emotional cost of silence within a family and community.

Shakespeare’s King Lear provides the plot’s scaffolding. Larry Cook is an aging widowed patriarch of a respected farming family in Cabot, Iowa. Rather impulsively, he divides his land between his three grown daughters, Rose, Ginny, and Caroline. But when the youngest daughter Caroline questions his decision, he deletes her from the deal. Larry’s decision is rash and may indicate his emerging dementia. His choice catalyzes the dramatic eruption in the Cook family dynamic. Tragedy ensues.

Narrated by the middle daughter Ginny, the story shows the strain of farming the land and raising livestock. Decisions have life-and-death implications that empower and entangle families. Ginny, Rose, and their husbands struggle to maintain the Cook Family’s 1000-acre farm. Rose and Ginny glorify the family’s long history and traditions while feeling trapped in their roles and duties required to keep the farm going. They revere and resent their way of life and the small town where everyone knows each other’s business.

Ginny and Rose also continue to take care of their cantankerous and cruel father, who expects everyone he encounters to defer to him. Unlike the other characters, the origins of Larry Cook’s behavior are unclear. Smiley might say that thousands of years of patriarchy would best describe his callous conduct. He manipulates and denigrates his friends and family because he can; it is as if he is the king of Cabot, Iowa. Meanwhile, the youngest Cook sister, Caroline, has left the farm and is an attorney in Des Moines. Caroline harbors resentment toward her older sisters and blames them for her exclusion from the transaction. She knows nothing of what Rose and Ginny endured to protect her from their father.

Ginny says, “The wisdom of the plains. Pretend nothing happened.” But old wounds appear as Rose, Ginny, and their husbands make decisions about the farm. Repressed emotions begin to leak, and eventually, the characters will give voice to their feelings. The results of years of silence are like a tornado ripping the Cook family members from their foundations. By the novel’s end, the full tragedy of these repressed lives becomes clear.

And though ‘A Thousand Acres’ might sound depressing, it is not. Smiley’s ability to create complex characters and write precisely about their family dynamics is inspiring. Readers can gain insight into the human condition. Isn’t that the purpose of a well-written novel? 5/5