A Thousand Acres
Jane Smiley
12th February 1996 (Sam's birthday!) at Eliane's House
Synopsis
Larry Cook's farm is the largest in Zebulon County, Iowa,
and a tribute to his hard work and single-mindedness. Proud
and possessive, his sudden decision to retire and hand over
the farm to his three daughters, is disarmingly uncharacteristic.
Ginny and Rose, the two eldest, are startled yet eager to
accept, but Caroline, the youngest daughter, has misgivings.
Immediately, her father cuts her out.
First lines
At sixty miles per hour, you could pass our farm
in a minute, on County Road 686, which ran due north into
the T intersection at Cabot Street Road. Cabot Street Road
was really just another country blacktop, except that five
miles west it ran into and out of the town of Cabot. On the
western edge of Cabot, it became Zebulon County Scenic Highway,
and ran for three miles along the curve of Zebulon River,
before the river turned south and the Scenic continued west
into Pike. The T intersection of CR 686 perched on a little
rise, a rise nearly as imperceptible as the bump in the center
of an inexpensive plate.
Published reviews
While Smiley has written beautifully about families in all
of her preceding books, her latest effort is her best; a family
portrait that is also a near-epic investigation into the broad
landscape, the thousand dark acres, of the human heart. The
book has all the stark brutality of a Shakespearean
tragedy.
Washington Post
A Thousand Acres is the big book that will finally
earn Jane Smiley the wider audience she deserves.
New York Times
Brilliant. . . . Absorbing. . . . A thrilling work of art.
Chicago Sun-Times
Superb. . . . There seems to be nothing Smiley can’t
write about fabulously well.
San Francisco Chronicle
It has been a long time since a novel so surprised me with
its power to haunt. . . . A Thousand Acres [has] the
prismatic quality of the greatest art.
Chicago Tribune
Absorbing. . . . Exhilarating. . . . An engrossing piece
of fiction.
Time
A full, commanding novel. . . . A story bound and tethered
to a lonely road in the Midwest, but drawn from a universal
source. . . . Profoundly American.
The Boston Globe
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