[The] portrait of Salina DeJong would in itself suffice to make Miss Ferber's [So Big] a notable book.

And as a background for this portrait we have a sketch of Chicago and its development during the past thirty-five years….

The plot is slight, very slight: the novel is rather a chronicle than a story, but it is a chronicle rich in variety and in contrast. There are moments of satire, as in the picture of Mid-Western University, with its division of students into two sections, the Classified and the Unclassified…. Salina sent her son there, with her head full of dreams about his developing "in an atmosphere of books, of learning."…

But the things that seemed of most importance to the people "who counted" at Mid-Western University were none of them the things that seemed important to Salina. Their standards of value were altogether different.

And this question...