O Pioneers!
Willa Cather
Paperback
(Aziloth Books, Sept. 25, 2010)
'O Pioneers!' was Willa Cather's first successful novel, and it is arguably her greatest masterpiece. The book follows the life of Alexandra - a strong-minded young woman of immigrant descent - as she strives to make her farm a success amid the wind-swept wilds of Nebraska. Cather uses the story to explore both Humanity's age-old relationship to the land, and the harsh realities of pioneer existence on the American frontier, arguing that attempts to dominate the environment must always fail, and suggesting that working with the land is a far more productive process. But life is more than farming, and Alexandra is caught up in the full sweep of human experience, from birth to death and the sweet pain of love, whose consequences, as she discovers, can range from the exhilarating to the murderously tragic.