American Loss

There is something distinctively American about the tragedy Jane Smiley describes in her novel A Thousand Acres, despite its echoes of King Lear, with three daughters pitted against each other while their father descends into senility.

Told by Ginny, the oldest daughter, Smiley's tale exudes a midwestern pride of place within the rural landscape, of owning a certain number of acres, of farming, of surviving bad luck and bad weather and bad judgment.

What this family cannot survive is competition between sisters, family secrets of sexual abuse, marital conflict and infidelity, and generational conflict. These are universals, but their details here are strongly rooted in the particulars of time and place.

Smiley is a masterful storyteller, keeping events moving relentlessly forward. With an even hand and a flatness of language that belies its skillfulness, she creates a brooding sense of impending disaster -- the literary equivalent of a storm-line on the horizon with perhaps a tornado inside. When the storm finally breaks upon this family, much is destroyed and little remains. That, too, somehow seems essentially American.

Excerpt:

My father was so quiet that it was easy to believe that he had learned his lesson, that there would have to be no discussion of keys or drinking or of the whole situation we found ourselves in. It was easy to believe that he was quiet because chastened, even embarrassed. Ty, too, was quiet. Perhaps they had already talked, come to some agreement, and Ty would present me with that when we got home. I said, "Daddy, have you got those pills the nurse gave you?"

The question went unanswered, so unanswered that it got to be like a question that no one had ever expected would be answered. Whether or not he had the pills turned out to be none of my business. That was the answer.

Note: This book counts for the Mount TBR Reading Challenge and the Color Coded Reading Challenge. It's also a Pulitzer winner.