Buried treasure

So here's a book I never would have picked up on my own. But I needed something to read on our long plane trek home from Alaska, and my mother in law thought I'd like this 1940s-set gem. She was right. I looked for this book on Amazon since I'm trying to do this fancy-dancy Amazon Associates thing. It's out of stock. But you can read the whole book at Google Books! It's your lucky day, people!

Winter Wheat is in some sense regional fiction, very much about the wheat-growing country of central Montana, but it's also more universal than that. It's mostly about a daughter, Ellen, striving to understand her parents and their love for each other - something she doubts as she discovers romantic love for herself.  And it's about different Americans - urban, rural, immigrants, soldiers, zealots, children, teachers - and how they influence each other. Still pretty relevant things to think about, 60 or 70 years later.

One thing bugged me; the moment of epiphany for the protagonist practically had neon lights around it. I wish someone could have told the author (Mildred Walker) that we would have gotten it even without the caps and italics. But I just chalked it up to an Anne Shirley moment and moved on. Overall, I enjoyed the entire book. Not a hard read. Not a controversial read. Just a great story. I'd say it's an underrated classic, even.

The whole plains feeling of the setting and the great character of Ellen's Russian mother, Anna, kept me thinking of My Antonia ... an all-time fave for me, a high compliment.