Somewhere between the lyricism of poetry, the richness of a fine pastoral landscape and the wistful recounting of beloved family tales, lies the magical fiction of Willa Cather’s My Ántonia. Gliding above the coppery prairie grasses as lightly as a hawk riding summer swells, we savor the intimate and loving details of the hearth without losing sight of the immense panorama of change wrought by those who had no choice but to succeed — or perish. That such an epic can spring from such simple roots is the key to Cather’s genius. There are no plot twists or tricks to keep the reader going; it all rings so true and so compelling one can’t wait to return to the heart of the prairie to find out what happens next.

Cather’s loving portraits are not of the protestant outcasts of Plymouth and their endless double dealings and witch trials, nor are they gothic dramas of the planters of Virginia and their innumerable slaves. There is no six-shooter chicanery to be found here – the simple heroics of survival are far more satisfying. Ordinary men and women of their time forged contracts between themselves, the unpredictable sky and the unforgiving grassland beneath. Wealth could measured by a fat chicken or two and whether a house of wood improved upon a hut hardly more substantial than a gopher hole. These are the joys and sorrows of pioneers who danced on the edge of survival and sanity, who subdued the endless acres with devotion, sacrifice and mutual aid. If ever we needed this kind of unromanticized grit and determination, it is now.