For a “literary” family saga, it’s hard to beat A Thousand Acres, set in Iowa; Jane Smiley’s novel is a modern retelling of the King Lear story. A novel to sweep you up and carry you along as the tragic story of this thousand acres of the best black, densest, deepest earth unfolds.
Reviewed by Sue Baker Sue Baker has for many years been a regular non-fiction reviewer to the book trade and is one of Lovereading's founder book experts. More reviews by Sue Baker
About A Thousand Acres
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER The only hardcover edition of the "powerful and poignant" (The New York Times Book Review) twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear With a new introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY CONTEMPORARY CLASSICSThis powerful novel 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.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER The only hardcover edition of the "powerful and poignant" (The New York Times Book Review) twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear With a new introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY CONTEMPORARY CLASSICS
This powerful novel 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.
Everyman's Library pursues the highest production standards, printing on acid-free cream-colored paper, with full-cloth cases with two-color foil stamping, decorative endpapers, silk ribbon markers, European-style half-round spines, and a full-color illustrated jacket. Contemporary Classics include an introduction, a select bibliography, and a chronology of the author's life and times.
'A Thousand Acres is a strong, gnarled shocker of a novel! superb. Its success is down to Smiley's ambitious gusto, her intuitive handling of the relationship between character and landscape, and her willingness to haul genuine moral freight across the panorama she has so expertly painted.' Sunday Times
'Epic fiction of the very highest order, naturalistic , penetrating and wholly absorbing.' Literary Review
'Superlative, extraordinary, amazing. A Thousand Acres is a great American tragedy about the failure of a family's land and the failure of its love. There may have been better novels than A Thousand Acres, but I fear I didn't read them -- a haunting inquisition into the decline and fall of a family.' Independent
'A studied, ingenious variation on the brutal clashing of sexes and generations in King Lear. Its style is relaxed, conversational, unhurried; the novel flows gently onwards like a broad river. In its solidity and poise, A Thousand Acres is a book that will outlast this year's rainy season.' Vogue
'Powerful, poignant, intimate and involving.' New York Times
Author
About Jane Smiley
Jane Smiley was born in LA, grew up in St Louis and studied at Vassar and Iowa. She won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Award in 1992 for 'A Thousand Acres'.
PULITZER PRIZE WINNER The only hardcover edition of the "powerful and poignant" (The New York Times Book Review) twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear With a new introduction by Lucy Hughes-Hallett EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY CONTEMPORARY CLASSICSThis powerful novel 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.
A Thousand Acres features in the following genres: Modern and Contemporary Fiction, Family Drama, General Fiction, Fiction
Hardback, Paperback. Not Available.
A Thousand Acres was written by Jane Smiley and published by Everyman's Library an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
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