![]() ![]() ![]() Jess, you learn, as in Canada dodging the draft. Larry Cook first announces his decision to give the farm to his daughters at a pig roast of a neighbor, Harold Clark, who is celebrating the return (after over a decade) of his prodigal son, Jess. She is unable to have children after several miscarriages and often acts as the caretaker of the family. At the same time, it’s important because while she is the oldest (thirty-six at the opening of the novel to Rose’s thirty-four and Caroline’s twenty-eight), she often thinks and acts as if she is the youngest. Ginny’s role as narrator is important in that she is the most neutral of the sisters in the matter. The novel eschews the elder Cook’s point of view in favor of Ginny, the eldest daughter’s. While King Lear centers on the eponymous king and his three daughters as they vie for his kingdom (and he decides based on how much they flatter him), A Thousand Acres follows the story of an aging, widowed Iowa farmer, Larry Cook, and his three daughters-Ginny, Rose, and Caroline-as he decides to incorporate his 1000-acre farm and hand over joint ownership to the daughters and their partners. Published in 1991 and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1991 and the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres is a modernized retelling of the Shakespeare classic tragedy King Lear. ![]()
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