by Jane Smiley
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Product Description
A successful Iowa farmer 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. An ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear cast upon a typical American community in the late twentieth century, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride, and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.
Amazon.com Review
Aging Larry Cook announces his intention to turn over his 1,000-acre farm--one of the largest in Zebulon County, Iowa--to his three daughters, Caroline, Ginny and Rose. A man of harsh sensibilities, he carves Caroline out of the deal because she has the nerve to be less than enthusiastic about her father's generosity. While Larry Cook deteriorates into a pathetic drunk, his daughters are left to cope with the often grim realities of life on a family farm--from battering husbands to cutthroat lenders. In this winner of the 1991 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Smiley captures the essence of such a life with stark, painful detail.
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Average Customer Review:
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
 Midwestern Drama and Dysfunction..., 2008-09-05
On a thousand-acre ranch in Iowa, a family compound of three farmhouses in close proximity to one another contains an aging father and two of his three daughters, along with their families.
Homey habits of family get-togethers and church picnics characterize their lives. But beneath the seemingly placid surface, family secrets, rivalries and betrayals lurk. When the patriarch makes an unexpected decision to set up a corporation and hand everything over to his
daughters, emotions are unleashed and a maelstrom of turbulence ensues.
Once the plans are set in motion, one of the daughters balks---soon there is a court case, with family members pitted against one another. And the father, who orchestrated events, is revealed as an angry, bitter tyrant. Then one of the daughters discloses to her sister the deep, dark secret that has informed most of her actions in adulthood.
Nothing will ever be the same again on these one thousand acres...
A Thousand Acres: A Novel is a multi-faceted dysfunctional family portrait...compellingly wrought by this award-winning author.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Engrossing and thought provoking read, 2008-05-02
I really enjoyed this book. The characters are interesting and the setting on an Iowa farm is very intriguing and different. I found that this was very hard to put down - a very fast read, and a very good one at that.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Just okay, 2008-04-27
As a work of literary fiction, the prose was not particularly well-written and the characters were at best a collection of stereotypes. Most glaringly, I felt as though this was taking place now and not during the Carter era. Perhaps there was a lot of talk of organic farming, the brain chemistry/causes of psychological illnesses and informing children of the dangers molestation among farmers in the late 70s. I personally do not remember any of those issues being popularly discussed until the late 80s.
This is the sort of marginally entertaining book that will hold your attention for the 3-4 days that it will take to read. However, there are far more interesting and moving books out there.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 After reading this, I feel better about my own family: ), 2008-01-22
This book takes a while to get to the action, but it was well worth the wait.
The narrative is so compelling that I found myself getting caught up in what was happening to the heroine. I became increasingly upset with each little injustice that she endured. The story takes several dark turns that kept me up past my bedtime.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
inside the whitewashed farmhouse, 2007-10-02
Way-too-human darker side of the many facets of the Midwest farm life, plus some deeply satisfying glimpses into its regional and natural history. A good read. I guess Smiley did create a very well-developed main character, because I still keep worrying about how she's doing. The others, however, were pretty one-dimensional, and more than a few of the plot turns seemed unrealistic, definitely not fleshed out, but I was completely willing to suspend disbelief in order to continue turning the pages to peer into the mind of that main character.
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