After marrying Will Deal and moving to Nebraska, Abbie endures the difficulties of frontier life and raises her children to pursue the ambitions that were once her own.

When Linnie Colsworth comes from the East to visit relatives in Omaha, she is plunged into a wider, more hazardous world than she had ever known. In the wake of the Civil War, land seekers are pouring into the West and displacing the Indian tribes. Not interested in spending her days sewing and serving tea, Linnie travels up the Missouri to deliver a "Dear John" message to her cousin's fiancé, a handsome lieutenant - and suddenly becomes the...

Swedish farmer John Bergson's daughter Alexandra encourages the family members to help keep his dream alive after his death.

When Colton Burpo made it through an emergency appendectomy, his family was overjoyed at his miraculous survival. What they weren't expecting, though, was the story that emerged in the months that followed, detailing their little boy's trip to heaven and back. Colton told his parents he left his body during the surgery. He talked of visiting heaven and relayed stories told to him by people he met there whom he had never met in life, sharing events...

Born into poverty in a small desert town in the American Midwest, Thea Kronborg is one of seven children. But Thea is exceptional, a fact recognized by a discerning few, including Ray Kennedy, who longs to marry her but whose fate it is to set her free. With her rugged will and pioneer spirit, Thea carves her way from Moonstone, Colorado to Chicago, from Dresden to New York, culminating in a triumphant debut at the Metropolitan Opera. Thea has become...

The Pulitzer Prize—winning author of O Pioneers! presents a moving study of an ambitious woman and her troubled marriage in this 1926 novella. When young Myra Driscoll is forced to choose between a large inheritance from her great-uncle and marrying the man she loves, she follows her heart. She and Oswald Henshawe leave their small Illinois town to pursue a future together in New York City. Years later, fifteen-year-old Nellie Birdseye meets Myra...

At the age of 17, Randall Hunsacker shoots his mother's boyfriend, steals a car and comes close to killing himself. His second chance lies in a small Nebraska farm town, where the landmarks include McKibben's Mobil Station, Frmka's Superette, and a sign that says The Wages of Sin is Hell. This is Goodnight, a place so ingrown and provincial that Randall calls it "Sludgeville"-until he starts thinking of it as home.
In this pitch-perfect...

Stories of the heartland by the National Book Award finalist and author of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
“Nebraska captures a rowdy, changing America. Written with wit and brawny lyricism, in voices ranging from hip to tender, the stories gathered here are as diverse and expansive as the country they celebrate…References to America’s heartland abound throughout the book...