A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley (Alfred A. Knopf, 1991; 384 pages) is a Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that reimagines Shakespeare’s King Lear in a late?20th?century Midwestern setting. The story follows Larry Cook, a wealthy Iowa farmer, who decides to divide his thousand?acre farm among his three daughters. When the youngest daughter resists, she is disinherited, setting off a chain of events that exposes buried family secrets, abuse, and betrayal.