The Able McLaughlins

Set among Scots Presbyterian settlers on the Iowa prairie during the Civil War years, this novel follows Wully McLaughlin home from the army to a homecoming soured by grief. The girl he loves, Christie, has been assaulted and left pregnant by a swaggering neighbor, and Wully answers by marrying her and claiming the child as his own. When the guilty man returns to the settlement, long buried anger threatens everything the young couple have built. Margaret Wilson draws the close, watchful pioneer community with unusual honesty about its hardships, its faith, and its capacity for both cruelty and forgiveness. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize in 1924. This free PDF and EPUB edition returns an early American prize winner to circulation.