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Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's King Lear set on a farm in Iowa in the late 1970s told from the point of view of Ginny, the oldest of three daughters. Larry Cook, a prominent farmer, announces at a family gathering that he has decided to divide his thousand acres between his three daughters. While Ginny and Rose acquiesce to their father's wishes, Caroline demurs and enrages her father. Ginny tries to hold the family together but Rose, recovering from cancer treatment and fearful for the fate of her two daughters, is unrepentant in her criticism both of Caroline's selfishness and Larry's bullying nature. As Larry descends into rage and dementia, all the buried family secrets are finally laid bare.
A Thousand Acres is family drama writ large. It is a story with great scope and broad appeal with distinctive female characters that explores ideas of family conflict, patriarchy, legacy and the strength and fragility of the ties that bind us together, all told through the eyes of its central female protagonist.
At a get-together in early summer 1979, Larry Cook surprises his entire family by dividing his prized 1000-acre farm between his 3 daughters Ginny, Rose and Caroline. At first Ginny and Rose and their husbands are thrilled (if a little suspicious) and begin making plans for expansion. But chaos and family arguments ensue as Caroline questions everyone's motives and Larry spirals into anger and madness. Act I ends with the storm scene - after hurling insults and accusations at his daughters, Larry runs off into the night, leaving Ginny and Rose to pick up the pieces.
Later that night, Rose finally reveals what has made her so bitter over the years: Larry sexually abused both her and Ginny as girls, though Ginny has buried the memory. At first Ginny denies it happened, but a flashback brings it all raging back. Ginny's marriage unravels, Larry sues his daughters to get the farm back and though the women win the case, all is essentially lost. What took 3 generations to build disintegrates in a matter of months. They lose control of the farm and Rose dies of cancer, poisoned by the well water.
In the epilogue, though, there is hope. On the day of the farm sale, Ginny tells Caroline to take whatever she wants - she then grabs the hands of Rose's two daughters, who she is now raising, and together the 3 leave the farm to start a life that is truly their own.
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