Weeds

Bright and independent-minded, Judith Pippinger Blackford aspires to a life of freedom and self-expression beyond the tobacco fields of Kentucky. But her dreams are crushed by the reality of farm life, an endless cycle of tending children, livestock, and menfolk, while trying to scratch a living out of the unyielding clay soil. Based on the author's own attempts to raise tobacco, this pioneering naturalistic novel recounts the dire effects of her poverty and thwarted ambition with compassion but without sentimentality. Sinclair Lewis midwifed the 1923 publication of Weeds, but despite critical acclaim the book failed to find an audience. Rediscovered in the 1970s, it has since been reappraised as an American classic.