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 Town, the longest novel of the trilogy, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize and
received excellent reviews across the country. It tells how Sayward completes
her mission and lives to see the transition of her