Thousand Acres

Jane Smiley is one of America’s greatest contemporary novelists. The author of seven other novels, she taught at Iowa State University before moving to California to concentrate on her writing.

‘A Thousand Acres is a strong, gnarled shocker of a novel… superb. Its success is down to Smiley’s ambitious gusto, her intuitive handling of the relationship between character and landscape, and her willingness to haul genuine moral freight across the panorama she has so expertly painted.’ Sunday Times‘Epic fiction of the very highest order, naturalistic , penetrating and wholly absorbing.’ Literary Review‘Superlative, extraordinary, amazing. A Thousand Acres is a great American tragedy about the failure of a family’s land and the failure of its love. There may have been better novels than A Thousand Acres, but I fear I didn’t read them – a haunting inquisition into the decline and fall of a family.’ Independent‘A studied, ingenious variation on the brutal clashing of sexes and generations in King Lear. Its style is relaxed, conversational, unhurried; the novel flows gently onwards like a broad river. In its solidity and poise, A Thousand Acres is a book that will outlast this year’s rainy season.’ Vogue‘Powerful, poignant, intimate and involving.’ New York Times