Edna Ferber 
So Big 

The winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction in 1925. After losing her father and her husband, Selina Peake is left to raise her only son on the farm that was left to her. Dirk Peake, a tenacious boy who grows up to be a successful bond salesman, must come to terms with his own regrets later in life after he decides not to pursue architecture, a passion that both he and his mother shared. This classic novel about family, immigration, and the role of art and culture in society asks an age-old question: Can money really buy happiness?