By Jane Smiley
The novel starts in 1920 with Walter Langdon on his small farm in Iowa. He’s twenty five years old and has a wife, Roseanne and baby. Each chapter is another year in their lives on the farm, the children that are born, and one who died. Roseanne’s religious journey, dragging the rest of the family along with her. The children growing up and leaving home. Good weather, and therefore good crop years, and bad, the year the well went dry. The war years and the aftermath. The oldest son Frankie joins the army a few months before he is due to graduate from college. He trains to be a sniper and goes through Italy, France and Germany, seeing the horrors of war but accepting them as part of the deal. Frank’s younger brother Joe, is the one who stays home and becomes a farmer, in the end a better farmer than his dad. Lillian, the perfect daughter remains perfect until she leaves her job at the drugstore one evening to run away with Arthur to Washington, D.C, where they marry and raise a family. Lillian loves life in the city and thinks back on growing up on a farm wondering how she survived without modern conveniences. No wells running dry for her and no telling what was in that well water to begin with. Henry is the book worm, not going to work on the farm, it was evident from childhood. And their last child, Claire, who now that Walter has less responsibilities now that Joe is doing most of the farm work, becomes his favorite.
This is a wonderful story of family life in the rural Midwest.