The Fields by Conrad Richter

The Awakening Land #2

by Conrad Richter

The Awakening Land trilogy traces the transformation of a middle-American landscape from wilderness to farmland to the site of modern industrial civilization, all in the lifetime of one character. The trilogy earned author Conrad Richter immense acclaim, ranking him with the greatest of American mid-century novelists. It includes The Trees (1940), The Fields (1946), and The Town (1950) and follows the varied fortunes of Sayward Luckett and her family in southeastern Ohio.The Fields tells the story of Sayward as a wife and mother, working with her own brood on that hard frontier to create a durable home, and aspects of civilization in a region where life is still difficult and towns are just beginning to appear. It is a rich and human novel about personal conflicts and strife in the midst of a land that itself is striving. And it has an epic quality that perfectly reflects the sweeping conquest of the frontier.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Classics, Historical, Literature, Novels, American

Paperback

First published January 1, 1946

About the author

Conrad Michael Richter (October 13, 1890 – October 30, 1968) was an American novelist whose lyrical work is concerned largely with life on the American frontier in various periods. His novel The Town (1950), the last story of his trilogy The Awakening Land about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.[1] His novel The Waters of Kronos won the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction.[2] Two collections of short stories were published posthumously during the 20th century, and several of his novels have been reissued during the 21st century by academic presses. (wikipedia.org)

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Fields is the second volume in Conrad Richter’s trilogy The Awakening Land. In The Trees, Sayward Luckett arrived in the wilds of Ohio, where the forest was so thick it blocked out the sun, and the family were the only people, aside from Indians, inhabiting the land. Before the next group of settlers is established, Sayward’s mother, Jary, is dead and not long after her father, Worth, has departed for the next wilderness he can find.

Sayward stays in the cabin the family built, raises her remaining siblings, and establishes a life. Married now, she becomes the backbone of this land. She raises her children and clears her land, and it is the coming of the fields from the forest that this book deals with. We see, step-by-step, how the wilderness gives way to civilization; how a church and a school and businesses begin to take root in what was once an unsettled land. With the coming of this new place comes a new way of life, and not one without trouble or toil, but one with a different breed of both.

Richter’s style of writing makes me feel I am present in the settlement these people inhabit. I can feel the sweat that is required to make a good life out of a harsh environment, I can see the larger wildlife recede and the smaller animals, mice and possums, foxes and birds, take their place. There is a marked difference between Sayward’s children’s lives and the clear picture that remains in our minds of that of Sayward and her siblings. The change is gradual, but the change is real, and Richter is masterful at bringing us from one stage of the growth of this territory to another in exactly the kind of slow progression that life itself takes. In fact, he has now brought us out of the territory and into Ohio statehood.

I love books with strong women, particularly women who are strong in times and places where men are meant to prevail. Sayward is such a woman. She is much stronger than her husband, Portius, and it is her determination and sweat that carves civilization out of this wilderness, not his books or his law offices. Nothing about this life is easy, the dangers lie all around, and they are coupled with the human failings that have also been with us since the beginning of time.

I am looking forward to the final book, The Town, for I know it will bring these characters full circle and leave them in a place that is not wilderness any longer. I wonder if it will be better, for it is evident to us all that as we gain one thing, we lose something else.

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Fields” is the second book in “The Awakening Land” trilogy. It continues the story of the characters from the first novel The Trees . The title indicates the progression of lives and livelihoods. The land is being cleared of trees, wild game is being killed off, and farming together with domestic cattle is the primary work and source of wealth and income.

Reference is made in the first chapter to Ohio becoming a state, and a baby born in the first chapter is probably in a teenager by the end of the book. From these clues the time covered can be estimated at 1803 to 1818± . This time in Ohio history is of interest to me because my own great-great grandfather moved to Ohio from Pennsylvania during the later part of that time period.

Near the beginning of the book there is reference to a summer that experienced unusually cool weather and was followed by a very dry year when crops failed. In order to avoid starvation they had to buy grain from farmers in Kentucky. Surely that part of the story is referring to the famous "year without a summer" that occurred in 1816. That doesn't fit into the chronology of the book as smoothly as I would wish, but it is a novel so years can be moved to fit the narrative. I'm sure crop failures were a real part of history, and it is appropriate that such experiences belong in a novel that is trying to recreate the early settler experience.

The area is turning into a settlement community with a general store and grist mill, and without any intentional planning it is turning into a town (thus the title for the next book). It's interesting to note that there is a planned town being laid out by a real estate speculator nearby, but by the end of the book it appears that the unplanned town is the one with a future.

The relationship between Sayward—the now adult daughter from the previous book—and her lawyer husband Portius is a significant part of this book's plot. Together they have eight children—one died young—at which point Sayward ended conjugal relations in order to avoid additional pregnancies. Portius then has an extramarital affair. Their marriage survives and a ninth child is born, but they are never seen together in public after the affair. Everybody in the community knows about the affair—a child was born from it—so this is a legacy that can be expected to show up in the final book of the trilogy.

The Sayward/Portius marriage had several incompatible strains—Portius, an intellectual agnostic and Sayward an illiterate and primitively devout Christian. Their differences in world view and differing priorities became more evident as their children grow up.

I have questions about the historicity of one point in the book. In the book Sayward maintains ownership of her land independently of her husband. Over the passage of years she and her large family develop a successful farming/dairy operation, and I would imagine that they are relatively well off for the time and location. However, I thought the wife's ownership of land moved to the husband upon marriage according the laws and traditions of the time. I'm under the impression that the details of the book are carefully researched, so I'm pretty sure my understanding is incorrect. Maybe the fact that she owned the land prior to their marriage is part of the issue.

[Lori Keeton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second in the pioneer trilogy called The Awakening Land: The Trees, The Fields, & The Town which centers on those brave folks who set out to settle the region that is the state of Ohio. The story takes place about 1800 and continues from the first book, The Trees, and picks up with Sayward and Portius Wheeler beginning to start a family. The site of their cabin in the thick, dense trees has begun to be culled and whittled down so that the land can now be used for growing crops in fields. Sayward battles the “big butts” which are the enormous trees that block the sun. The community begins developing as a new church building is raised, a mill is established as well as a general store.

Sayward is the backbone of the family and her husband, trained as a lawyer, lends his skills to improving their settlement. Their oldest son, Resolve, has an aptitude for learning which prompts them to found a school. Portius teaches the boys ancient literature and ciphering. Sayward tends the land, the house, the animals, the sewing, the cooking, the children - everything. After 7 children and one tragic childhood incident, her inner strength is to be admired as is her ability to take each misfortune with such calm. Her husband is not a likable man and rarely demonstrates love or affection. They are very much opposites in every way and unlikely partners.

Sayward has a chance to leave her land in the wilderness for the newly built homes and conveniences of the new town. She is able to recognize that progress and change is happening steadily.

It wouldn’t be long, she told herself, till the stumps in most of her fields would be gone, burned through, yanked up and dug out. She hated in a way to see them go, for she knew every last one as good as she did her sheep and geese, the fat stumps and the skinny ones, those that leaned this way and those that leaned that, some cut high, some low, some barked and most of them blackened by fire … the times of the deep woods were passing. Farming times were coming around.

Once again, Richter succeeds in describing events and daily occurrences subtly yet poignantly and often heartbreakingly. His prose is not flowery but strait forward. He allows readers to be present with the people here who are making their way to creating a community where none existed until their arrival. The story of Sayward and her children is not complete. The Town is the third novel and I will look forward to finding out what is to become of this family that I have invested so much in so far.

[Connie G · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conrad Richter's "The Awakening Land" trilogy began with "The Trees" when the Luckett family hiked into Ohio's untouched thick forests to build a new home. Hunting was an important source of food, and the logs from the towering trees were used to build their cabin. After her mother died, and her father headed into the Western wilderness, the oldest daughter Sayward raised her younger siblings. Sayward Luckett married the lawyer Portius Wheeler as the first book ended at the dawn of the 19th Century.

Sayward and Portius have a large family in the second book, "The Fields." Land was cleared and farming became a way of life. Sayward was physically and emotionally strong as she provided for her family. While Portius can teach the children how to read, Sayward taught them how to survive and farm the land. More families moved to the area so a church and a schoolhouse were constructed. A general store, a grist mill, and a boat landing were also built near Sayward's cabin. Their home was now in a prime location near the center of a growing community.

One of the biggest challenges was the failure of crops when a cold summer was followed by a dry summer. Dangers were always present - a terrible burn, a life-threatening snake bite, and other injuries. Relationship problems were just as hurtful as the challenges presented by Mother Nature.

I admire Sayward, and have enjoyed seeing her mature during the first two books of the trilogy. I'm looking forward to final book of the trilogy which will take us to Sayward's later years, and further along the progression from forest to farms to towns.

[Dorcas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Second novel in "The Awakening Land" series, the first being "The Trees".

Here we have the forest slowly but surely coming under the thumb of civilization and Sayward's family expanding until she bears nine children by the end (and I believe more to come in book three).

There is excitement in the form of snake bite and one horrible burn accident but overall I felt this book was tamer than its predecessor, almost as though the author was attempting to show that with civilization comes a certain calmness. But not too civil, mind. This is still early days and there is one section that bothered me a bit, regarding the wide scale decimation of wildlife enabling farmers to farm in peace. But it did happen which makes it all the sadder.

I enjoyed this. It can't match "The Trees" but it's a good, solid follow up. 

[Irene · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second volume in a trilogy about a family settling the territory which would become the state of Ohio. This moves the story another generation. The young girl forced to grow up too quickly in The Trees has become the mother of a large family. The trees have been cut down, the land tilled, crops planted, more settlers have arrived, a school, church and trading post built. This book ends with the settlement on the brink of becoming a town. Meanwhile, there are constant threats to life: illness, snake bites, accidents, crop failure. The bulk of the work is born by the women who are physically and emotionally stronger than most in the 19th century would have expected.

[Hana · Rating 4 out of 5]

For some, the woodsies who made their living hunting and trapping game, the great trees in the Ohio valley's primeval forests were friends. But for the settlers who came west hoping to farm the rich land of the valley, the trees were obstacles, massive barriers to the light and rain cultivated crops needed.



Over the course of some fifteen years the Ohio River Valley is transformed, the land is tilled, the stumps torn out by brute force and fire, and the river becomes a great watery highway linking Ohio settlements and the port city of New Orleans.

The Fields is the second of Conrad Richter's trilogy and picks up where The Trees left off, about a year after Sayward Luckett's marriage to Portius Wheeler. Portius is a failed Bay Colony transplant, once a lawyer but later fallen on hard times and despair. Sayward sees something special in Portius and chooses him as her husband. She has pulled him up from depression, put him to studying his books again and even convinced him to practice law. In the dramatic first chapter, Sayward is told of a letter from back East, from Portius' Massachusetts relatives seeking information about her and urging the return of the prodigal. The Fields is written from Sayward's point of view and Portius remains something of a mystery throughout.

By the second chapter, Sayward is about to give birth to the first of nine children (though I think I might have lost count somewhere along the line). Childbearing doesn't phase her in the least and she's back driving her oxen to plow the grubbed out corn fields with hardly a few hours spent abed. Formidable.

The Fields covers a long time span and many of the chapters read as brief vignettes marking the passage of time--one older child after another starts to grow up, the scattered settlements coalesce into something like a village and the land is cleared of trees and (disastrously) of the game that once teemed through the forests, leaving nothing left when the crops fail. As the book closes prosperity has returned to the valley (1815?) but in a new form, a way of life that the old woodsies could never have imagined.

Oh, a hundred times or more had she seen these buildings from the farm side! But never had she seen them from the roof of a keel boat on the river. She couldn't get over how grand and imposing the river bank looked with cabins and houses setting on it an a lane like a street running along in front...Why, she could count nine or ten chimneys a sending out smoke at one time like Tatesville!

I won't say anything about the personal developments in Saywards story for fear of spoiling a delicately told tale.

[Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is not a lot to say here. The best book in the trilogy is The Trees. The Fields is fine, but doesn’t measure up to the raw power of the first novel.

I unreservedly recommend The Trees as the one to get into. On the other hand, you might enjoy all three a great deal. It is the ongoing story of a pioneer family.

[Brian E Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

This second book in The Awakening Land trilogy follows our heroine Sayward from the time of her marriage through having 7 children. While there are time jumps, the book is fairly chronological in presenting a 15+ year period of time in the life of Sayward, her husband Portius, her family, and her fellow pioneers. During this period, the nearby area develops from a wilderness fit for hunting to one where farming, livestock and their complementary trades and businesses can prosper.. With this change, a town called Tateville develops nearby and, the roots of a small town start to appear on and near Sayward’s own farm land.
The story consists of events during this growth, along with events in the life of Sayward and her family. Richter continues telling the story is a style that fits the rugged pioneer spirit of the area denizens.
I enjoyed this volume more than the first. I enjoyed the writing style more during this second volume, which may just be the result of my liking the story better. I was more interested in the events that occurred in this second volume. I believe this increased interest is not so much due to the events themselves, which are probably less dramatic than those in the first, but rather because I just like and enjoy the characters involved in the events more in this volume. I like Sayward and her family more than I did the prior generation of Lucketts who often frustrated me and failed to .have a great sense of family, I was able to empathize with all the Sayward family members, enjoy their stories and root for them. I even have a bit of fondness for Portius, who is weak yet capable of villainy. Portius, despite his weaknesses, adds a needed intellectual component to the family, the area residents, and to the story.
I look forward to volume 3. A 4-star read.

[Dax · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite as impressive as 'The Trees', but an enjoyable description of the transformation from wilderness to settlement. I've read some nonfiction about the settlement of Ohio in the late 18th century, and its been fun to read about it again in the form of fiction. Sayward, Portius and their children are all well developed characters, and I continue to appreciate Richter's writing talents.

This one didn't leave me with the same strong desire to continue with the trilogy as its predecessor did, but since the final installment was the pulitzer prize winner, onward we go to see how this all shakes out. Good to very good. Strong three stars.

[Terry · Rating 3 out of 5]

My three star rating means I liked this book but didn’t love it.

I am not enjoying this series as much as others who are in the CUwtC group Buddy Read. The Fields is the second in the series, called The Awakening Land, which tells the tale of Sayward and her family as the leave the civilization of Pennsylvania and settle in the Ohio wilderness, which is forest in The Trees, and turns into farms in The Fields.

There are some moments of enjoyment in the book for me, but overall, my mind kept wandering away from the story.

Perhaps part of the problem was the narrator for this one, which I listened to as an audiobook. I kept thinking that if a really good actor was reading it, I would probably enjoy it much more. As it was, the narrator had very little modulation in his voice and took no dramatic pauses in his reading. I found his delivery tiresome.

I switched to audio for this second book because I had a busy reading schedule in August. That may have been a mistake, but as my schedule is just as jammed in September, I may do that for the next one, The Town.

[Lisa (Harmonybites) · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Fields is the second book in the Awakening Land Trilogy. Richter received the Pulitzer Prize for The Town, the third book of the trilogy about American pioneers, and according to the short biography in the back, the first book, The Trees, was the one he "felt was most alive." This is the middle book, and I'd rate it only a smidgin below the first. It's mostly told through the point of view of Sayward Luckett, who was fifteen years old when she came to the Northwest Territory with her family. The books opens in 1803 when she has given birth to her first child and Ohio has just become a state. She described her first glimpse of where she'd come to live for the rest of her life as an ocean of trees. The trees called to "woodsies" like her father and brother, but for her they were the enemy with whom she was at war, and this installment is about her victory:

Only last week the stalks were still green and supple. Most every day she had come here to feel the heads and watch the wind run through the field like water. Sometimes the waves minded her of silver fire weaving this way and that... One day last week the wind came from the east. The waves that time rose from the bottom, and then it looked like a waterfall running up hill. Oh, ever since those stalks had stayed so fresh and green through the cold winter she had the feeling that something in that wheat was alive and everlasting.

I loved the voice of this short novel. Richter was born in 1890 and knew people who could tell him of the early pioneer days first hand; he talks in his acknowledgements of trying to approximate the speech of the eighteenth and early nineteen century from "old manuscripts, letters, records and other sources, and quite different from the formal written language of the period." The voice he creates is different enough from what we're accustomed to suggest a different time without ever becoming hard to comprehend. And though this was written in 1946, the way he writes women never feels dated. His Sayward came across as very real. I found particularly moving and striking her fierce joy in finally learning to write her own name. All in all I greatly enjoyed this. It's like an adult Little House book, with touches of lyricism, humor, and moving moments.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book, the second in a trilogy, continues the story of Sayward and her growing clan as they continue to carve their lives out of the forests of Ohio, at the turn of the 19th century. Having hewn out a clearing for themselves, quite literally, the pioneers can now begin to look out on open fields of wheat and corn with a measure of hopefulness that they are making progress against the frontier.

Even so the war rages on: no longer battling the dense forests, their open fields are perfect targets for all the small animals expropriated from the dense cover of trees: it is a constant battle to eke out a living out of the fields of wheat and corn, from battling the squirrels who eat the seeds to the deer who eat all the young shoots before they can have time to mature. Where once the forest provided shelter and food, the open fields now make them slaves to a different kind of cruel environment: slaves to drought and famine, created by their own resourcefulness and industry. In a cruel irony, the pioneers face worse problems in the fields than they did in the dense forests.

In eloquent dialect, and true to the period, Richter leaves readers feeling they are reading a personal diary of the period. Like a memoir, it seduces you into Sayward's life, and you emerge from the book having felt you experienced her life, rather than merely read about it.

[Savita Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This story focuses on the very difficult and dangerous lives of the American pioneers ( mainly focusing on the Wheeler family ) . They had to fend for themselves from the scratch.... ☆☆Beware Spoilers .... cutting down trees , making log cabins , a religious meeting place for prayers , a school , a general store , developing fields and farming ..... ☆☆ It was a very hard and courageous work , requiring great fortitude and perseverance . And slowly ☆☆Beware Spoilers a town begins to take shape ! ☆☆
In today's world , as we look around , our everyday lives are filled with so many conveniences , luxuries and blessings.... all of which we tend to take so much for granted . Imagine if we had to start from the scratch like those brave pioneers !

[Shirley (stampartiste) · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was such a satisfying sequel to Conrad Richter's The Trees in the The Awakening Land series. It continues the saga of the Luckett family, most particularly the incredible Sayward Luckett Wheeler. I just loved the authenticity of Richter's language, which brought to life the people and times of which he wrote. It really added to my enjoyment of the story.

Richter so vividly portrayed the growth of a community on the Ohio frontier (late 1700s-early 1800s). It was a hard, lonely life, and through Sayward, we see the development of the frontier from its dark forested beginnings. It was a story of relentless, back-breaking everyday struggles, deep tragedies, and gradual progress.

Richter was so adept at bringing his characters to life. Each contributed to a full understanding of the characters that would have peopled this community of pioneers. But the most amazing aspect to me was Richter's understanding of and sympathy for the women and the decisions they had to make. This, to me, elevated The Fields to a 5-star read. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading the next book in the series, The Town.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Fields” is the sequel to “The Trees” that I recently reviewed. Along with the final book in the trilogy, “The Town,” they all follow the life of fictional Sayward Lockett Wheeler, who lives in a settlement in the Northwest Territory in present-day Ohio.

“Trees” tells us of Sayward’s childhood up to her marriage, in the heavy forested area she has lived in with her family. In “Fields,” written in 1946 but set around 1800, we follow Sayward through her 20s and 30s. She and her husband Portius have over 100 acres, and a fellow settler asks if she would donate a bit of land to build a church. She is reluctant, until realizing that a church means an adjacent churchyard, where her mother and toddler daughter who died could be buried. “Her mother would have plenty of company. Jary had always been the sociable kind. She had come to these lonesome parts against her will. If it was let to her, she would have lived her life in the settlements. She liked to be where folks came and went. She and little Sulie would be pleased tonight if they knew they were lying in the shadow of a meeting house.”

Author Conrad Richter is a master of the language of the time and place. Growing up in southern Indiana, I was familiar with several words and phrases here. One was “heavy-set” used to describe someone who is … well, heavy. I haven’t heard that term used in years. Richter studied documents from the area in order to make the language realistic.

Richter also is masterful at describing things in ways that are subtle but that get points across in poignant and often heartbreaking ways. I felt so bad for Sayward when her husband took their oldest son, 10-year-old Resolve, on a trip to Kentucky with other men in a search of grain during a brutally lean year. While there, Resolve broke his leg badly, and the men left him there with other settlers to heal. He didn’t return for a year, and of course being 1800 Sayward had no communication with him all that time. Richter has Sayward consider this as analogous with Joseph keeping his brother Benjamin with him “among the flesh pots of Egypt” rather than letting him return to his father Jacob.

I loved this description of how good Sayward felt to attend church, when one was finally built: “It beat all, Sayward thought, how good you felt toward everybody after meeting. She could even pass the time to Idy Tull and listen to her brag how her brother could start any hymn he wanted without a fork. Just so he had the words and meter. Not that she listened long. Everybody was talking to some other body. When they got through, they would talk to somebody else. And when they had no more talk, they just stayed and listened to others talk, for it would be a long time till they had meeting again, and all were loath to leave each other for the lonesome woods.”

When Sayward is 34, she has had 7 living children and one who has died. She decides this is enough, and moves to a separate bed from her husband. Shortly, he hires a young attractive woman to teach in the new area school, and soon the two are having an affair. Everyone, including Sayward’s children, seems to realize this except Sayward herself.

Sayward’s husband and children yearn to move to a new town being built nearby, but Sayward realizes that she has come to love the wilderness where she lives. Still, she recognizes the inevitability of change and progress, even as she observes of an older acquaintance: “Now the times had left him behind, for he couldn’t fit himself to the new.” She doesn’t want to become that person.

“It wouldn’t be long, she told herself, till the stumps in most of her fields would be gone, burned through, yanked up and dug out. She hated in a way to see them go, for she knew every last one as good as she did her sheep and geese, the fat stumps and the skinny ones, those that leaned this way and those that leaned that, some cut high, some low, some barked and most of them blackened by fire … the times of the deep woods were passing. Farming times were coming around.”

After much thinking, Sayward returns to sleeping in her husband’s bed, comparing this burden to the yoke she puts on her oxen as she plows the field. “Of course, never had she thought she would sleep in Portuis’s off-the-floor bed, and rather she wouldn’t, but you didn’t go on rathers in this life. She better go along quiet as she could now in her cherry yoke and bear her load.”

Can I just say I LOVE Sayward? Forget the screaming banshees of 2021, here is a true hero of a woman to me. She takes her tough life as it comes, and deals with it. No whining, no complaining. Five stars, again, for another excellent book by Conrad Richter. I wish today’s high school AP lit kids could read this instead of some of the yuck they’re probably assigned.

[Cheryl · Rating 5 out of 5]

These 3 books (The Trees, The Fields, & The Town) are collectively known as The Awakening Land Series. They give an accurate view of what life was like for pioneers settling into N. America, specifically migrating from Pennsylvania to the wild unsettled area of what is now Ohio. They are narrated by the main character who begins the series as a teenager and then ends with her as an old woman in the last book. Richter is a great writer and really pulls you into what is going on with this family over the decades. He even uses the accent and vernacular of the time. This is one of my all time favorites.

[Jimmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like its predecessor, “The Trees,” I liked it just fine. It was easy to read and engaging enough. More of the same frontier settler story, with this second book charting the taming of the forest, the creating of farms, the growth of Sayward’s family, and the domestication of living. This book ends with Sayward’s little community turning more into a coherent township. Which, incidentally, is the title of the next book (and the Pulitzer winner), “The Town.” Now I can move on to that one and notch another Pulitzer winner in my quest to read them all.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sayard is really a tough and inspiring woman! I love the language Richter uses to show the dialect and speech patterns of the time. Fascinating to read about the slow growth from settlement to town.

[Amy Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second book in Conrad Richter's "Land Awakening" trilogy, following The Trees, and preceding The Town, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1951.

The Trees introduced us to Sayward Luckett, a strong and sharp-witted, albeit uneducated, young woman who was bringing up her siblings in the Ohio backwoods of the 1700s, after burying her mother and seeing her father disappear in to the woods. At the close of the first novel, Sayward married Portius Wheeler, a "Bay State Lawyer." Although their marriage was arranged by other settlers, Sayward had her eye on the quiet man they all called "Solitary."

In The Fields we see the marriage of Sayward and Portius grow to maturity, even as the woods frontier grows into a settlement community. Sayward's cradle seems to be always filled with a new young one and as her family grows, so does the settlement. A church is built, and then a school. Portius has more and more "law work" until Sayward tells him to stop working the fields, fearing that newer settlers won't respect her educated man it they see him grubby and dirty. The community is growing up, just like the Wheelers.

The Fields is a moving portrait of marriage and motherhood. Once again Conrad Richter does not sugarcoat. There is famine and unfaithfulness, death and disease, even as there is fruitfulness and forgiveness, life and love.

I love these books. Once again, I recommend them with caution to my young Goodreads friends (see my review of The Trees). Sayward faces some deep sadness and difficult challenges in motherhood and in marriage that might be hard to read and contemplate.

[Heleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read The Trees a few years ago and loved it, and I loved this second book in the series as well. Captivating description of American frontier expansion during post Revolutionary War era. But don't let that scare you off, if you're not into that sort of thing. It's all wrapped up with great characters in a simple but compelling story. While the writing and plot can stand alone, I recommend reading these books in order so you don't miss some of the finer details. Looking forward to reading the third book now, too.

[Tom Metz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent sequel to The Trees, second volume in Conrad Richter's The Awakening Land series. The austere tone and country ("woodsy") diction is maintained, but it never obtrudes on the narrative or breaks the wonderful spell this story casts. I am growing very fond of Saird Luckett. She reminds me of my grandmother. I'm going to miss her when I finish The Town.

[Ron Weber · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 2nd in the trilogy. So insightful and the writing style is amazing. He truly was a gifted word smith!

[Nancy O · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read The Awakening Land trilogy in 7th grade, some 46 years ago, and then I lost The Fields while rereading it. Then I discovered that these books, published initially in 1940, 1942, and 1946 respectively, were back in print from the Ohio University Press. They're every bit as good as I'd remembered.

The books follow the life of a "woodsy," Sayward Luckett Wheeler, who, in the latter part of the 18th century, carves a living along with her family in the deep forests of Ohio. In this particular volume she marries a pioneering lawyer from Massachusetts, works her land, bears seven children, and watches the taming of the land around her. It's a quick read, and a good one.

[Marnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another amazing book in the Awakening Land series. The mood of the book is tangible. The setting is an actual character. The language sets the tone. I just love Sayward. She lives a HARD life but she doesn't flinch. She just does what she can and moves on. Looking forward to the final one. (But also not because I'll be sad when I'm done."

[DKG2023 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm very much enjoying this trilogy thus far. Richter might write one chapter anecdotally almost as a discrete yarn, a touch reminiscent of Twain. Then the next chapter will catch the reader off guard with something very moving in its attention to simple emotions and details. An excellent mix of historical fiction and the timelessness of the human experience.

[Darcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is such a gentle series about such a momentous subject. I love reading about Sayward and the family and place she is building by her own hands. Next will be the Pulitzer Prize winning volume, the Town. I’m looking forward to it. George Saunders said in his book on short stories that a story should make you want to continue reading, and I think the same holds true about novels. And I do want to continue this series.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice continuation of our story.

[Harold Titus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Conrad Richter’s “The Fields” is the second novel of ”The Awakening Land” trilogy, which chronicles changing frontier life in southern Ohio beginning after the American Revolution and lengthening into the Nineteenth Century. Sayward Luckett Wheeler, the novel’s main character -- instinctively wise, competent, emotionally balanced – faces now different challenges. Long gone from her life are her father Worth, the inveterate hunter; her mother Jary, buried so long ago; and two sisters: the child Sulie, taken away by Indians, and the devious Achsa, living in the English Lakes area with her sister Genny’s husband Louie Scurrah. Of Sayward’s siblings only Genny and Wyitt remain.

During the time period of “The Fields,” which begins just before Ohio’s statehood is declared in 1803, Sayward -- married to the learned recluse Portius Wheeler at the conclusion of “The Trees” -- gives birth to eight children. The novel concerns itself with Sayward’s experiences as a mother, wife, homemaker, and land owner. It reveals several important experiences of three of Sayward’s older children. It exposes several of Portius’s not always commendable peculiarities. It chronicles the transition of the fledgling river settlement close to Sayward’s property from mostly a trading post establishment to a recognizable, successful town.

Specific events mark the transition. Statehood is declared. A township is created, necessitating the listing of property and acreage for taxing purposes. A large community hunt is undertaken to drive wild life out of the woods. A community meeting house is built on a parcel of Sayward’s property. A grain mill is built on the river. A school for boys is constructed. The town of Tateville is created. A locally built keel boat is launched. Toil, self-sacrifice, selfishness, disillusionment, tragedy, and self-discovery companion these events.

What engaged me most – not to ignore the novel’s feel of authenticity and depth of knowledge about frontier life at that time in that locality – was the author’s superb use of subjective narration to reveal at certain crisis moments his primary characters’ thoughts and emotions. Here are several examples.

Sayward’s fourth child and first daughter Sulie – so bright and engaging, walks on ashes outside the house to impress her brothers. Her dress catches on fire.

"If she got to be a hundred years old, Sayward told herself, never without her voice breaking could she tell a stranger how it went with their little Sulie that day. How she lay in her bed looking up at them with blackened rims where her eyelashes ought to be. How one minute she had been in this world light and free, and the next the gates of the other world were open and she had to pass through. Already she was where her own mammy couldn’t reach her. She couldn’t even touch grease to that scorched young flesh without Sulie screaming so they could hear her over at the Covenhovens."

…

"All the time in her mind she could see that little body when she first started to walk. Back and forwards Sulie’s small red dress used to go, her little red arms out to balance. She’d never get a weary. She could go it all day, wraggling and wriggling, skipping and jumping, going hoppity-hoppity, nodding and bobbing, in and out, from one side to another. Did that little mite know, she wondered? Did something tell her she had only a short while in this world, and that’s why she was always on the go, making up for it, cutting one dido after another?"

Sayward’s brother Wyitt decides to surrender to his desire to become a full-time hunter. Savoring his participation in the big community hunt to rid the woods of wildlife, he determines he must leave the area, strike out independently.

"No, never could he go back to corn-hoeing after today. Those black moose they told about and the hairy and naked wild bulls over the big river! He would have to see them and trail them and get them in his sights. Likewise the tiger cat, the striped prairie deer that outran the wind and the big horns that some called mountain rams. … He would send home his share of today’s meat… He would pick up his traps from his line and go. But never would he stop in at Sayward’s, for if he did, he might stay.

"... Oh, never would he go back to Sayward and Portius now, and yet he hated running off without saying something. Sayward had raised him, you might say. He had fought her plenty and called her names, but most times it turned out she was right. Maybe she was right that those who followed the woods never amounted to much. A farmer could stay in one place and gather plunder, she claimed, but a hunter had to keep following the game. … He knowed she was right. He had knowed it a long time. He had tried to break his self of it. He’d knock the wildness out of him, he said, if it was the last thing he did. He had done his dangdest to kill the ever-hunter in him, but it wouldn’t stay killed.

"... They [his nephews] were harder to leave than his full sister, for he took to them, and they to him. Especially Resolve, that tyke was different from his Uncle Wyitt as daylight to night time. For a little feller he was steady as could be. He could even read and write where Wyitt couldn’t sign his own name. He was his uncle’s favor-rite. Wyitt wished he had asked him to write something on a piece of paper so he could take it with him. Then some time he sat alone at night in some far woods or prairie, he could take out that paper. It would make him see Resolve plain as if standing here, screwing up his mouth and making pothooks and curleycues with his goosefeather pen while around him his smaller brothers watched and admired."

Sayward’s second-born son Guerdon is willful, selfish, and, sometimes, disobedient.

"Guerdon wished he had him another mammy. Oh, once he liked his mam good enough, but she’d changed. She’d gone back on him. He couldn’t make her out any more.

First she stood a slab bench with a gourd of soft soap by the run, and all had to scrub their heads and hands like they were pewter plates. Then she hung up a haw comb, and every time before you came in to eat, you have to hackle your hair with it. Oh, she was bound you’d be somebody around here. She put these puncheons down in the cabin just so she’d had a floor to scour, he believed. Now she talked of getting lime from Maytown and making her boys whitewash the logs.

"Her ways were so 'cam' you figured she was easy-going, but that’s where she fooled you. The day wasn’t long enough for the things she studied out to do to get you along in the world."

Sayward assigns Guerdon and his younger brother Kinzie to mill corn. The sweat mill standing in the chimney corner … " was the devil’s own contraption and turned hard as a four-horse wagon. A day’s grinding seemed a month long, and no Sabbaths."

While Sayward is away helping nurse a neighbor, the two boys take the corn they have been assigned to mill to the new grain mill at the river. They spend the entire day listening to stories told by patrons before returning home with a large sack of well-grounded flour. Sayward switches them. In bed that night, Guerdon is resentful.

"No, he wanted for forget his mam. He didn’t care if he never thought of her again."

Later in the novel Guerdon is bit on a finger by a rattlesnake. He cuts off the upper portion of his finger. Neighbors gather inside Sayward’s cabin to offer suggestions and witness the snakebite’s outcome. Sayward tends Guerdon as she sees fit.

"Guerdon believed he felt a mite better. It had worse things in this world than to lay here with nothing to do but have folks talk and worry over you. He couldn’t get over how good his mam had been to him. She was so 'cam' most times you thought she took you for granted and didn’t give a whoop for you any more. But let something real like this or stone blindness or black plague come along and you found out how much she liked you. Why, she’d chop off her own finger if it would help him any, he could tell. It gave him a feeling for her like old times."

I did not enjoy “The Fields” as much as I did “The Trees,” the first novel of Richter’s trilogy; although I am happy that I read it. “The Fields,” I felt, lacked its predecessor’s dramatic edge. Conflicts seemed a bit less daunting, less consequential. I look forward to reading the third novel, the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Town,” which, I expect, will focus on the consequences of a major human failing committed by Portius in “The Fields,” a failing I chose not to reveal in this review.

[Albert · Rating 5 out of 5]

While I didn't like The Fields as much as The Trees, it was still very enjoyable. Overall, this is one of the best series or trilogies that I can remember reading. Of course, the lead character Sayward makes the story for me. I have never come across another female character that is so strong, so demanding of respect, so independent, so supportive and loving towards her family and neighbors, so talented and hard-working and yet so human. For me the strongest image of Sayward is drawn with her speech as compared to her husband's. Sayward's speech is heavy with local dialect and lacking any formal education, whereas her husband is from the east coast and well-educated. And yet, often it is Sayward who provides the insight and wisdom while her husband pays attention. It is not unimportant that Sayward owns the land; she is the dominant force in the family and a major factor in the community. She is a leader, despite her faults, and is recognized as such. But she recognizes that she must often lead by discretely guiding.

The Fields could have been just more of the same, but Conrad Richter took the characters and therefore the reader to some very different and unexpected places than one would have thought at the end of The Trees.