A Thousand Acres Social Concerns

A Thousand Acres Social Concerns

Through a crisis in the Cook family precipitated by Laurence Cook's seemingly impetuous decision to turn ownership and management of his Iowa farm over to two of his daughters, Rose and Ginny, and their respective husbands, Peter Lewis and Ty Smith, and to disinherit his third daughter, Caroline, Smiley explores the history of settlement, development, and dispersal of a Midwestern farm community.

Besides indicating the courage, determination, and greed that motivated the founding pioneers, Smiley focuses on the price that succeeding generations paid for both material success and failure — the single-minded dominance of the men and the passive anonymity of the women. These characteristics lead to suicide and emotionally stunted lives, which are further injured physically by accidents and the long-term effects of pesticide pollution — cancer and infertility. Thus, as families break up under the never-ending pressures of weather, isolation, market fluctuations, and bank foreclosures, agribusinesses...
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