Willa Cather 
O Pioneers 

A classic frontier novel from Pulitzer prize-winning author Willa Cather, O Pioneers is a magnificent celebration of life and the noble pioneer spirit. It celebrates a 100th anniversary in 2013. It is a tale of murder, love and money, as people struggle to carve out a life in the wilderness during the turn of the twentieth century, while battling ever-duplicitous human nature. Alexandra Bergson’s father, John, is dying. He entrusts his farmstead on a desolate stretch of plain to her rather than to her brothers. Faced with the rigours of frontier living, droughts and penury, Alexandra only becomes more determined to carry on her father’s legacy and battles through remortgaging the farm and adopting new techniques. Fast forward sixteen years, her hard work has paid off, her brothers Lou and Oscar have both created prosperous farms and under Alexandra’s management the original farm has thrived. When childhood friend Carl Linstrum returns from travelling though it appears that romance is on the cards and Lou and Oscar drive him out of town, fearing that their sister’s marriage would disinherit their own children. The community begins to unravel as jealousy spills out into murder. Willa Cather’s writing reflects her upbringing in prairie lands steeped in history. Prairie living, and its accompanying literature, represents a quintessential American experience. The power of the land itself, the resilience of its inhabitants and the flow of history over the land all come together to create a potent and moving novel.