4. A Thousand Acres

The novel by Jane Smiley. I read this recently and, subject to some reluctance to believe that a hard-working farmer would do such horrible things to his daughters, thought the novel very skilfully constructed. It turned me from a slow reader into a (temporarily) moderately quick one. The writing is often worth savouring.

An interesting review here:

I found the voice of the narrator intriguing and wondered just how much of King Lear Smiley was going to be able to transpose to 1970s Iowa. Turns out, quite a bit, in a wondrously deft way that I would have termed a 'tour de force' if I used that phrase anymore.

The narrator is the eldest of the three daughters, and instead of a king dividing up his kingdom, the family farm is to be divided among the daughters somewhat early by forming a corporation in which he gives control of the farm to the children, in a sudden move that delights the older daughters and their husbands and alarms the youngest, who no longer lives on the farm nor has much to do with it.