Limits of the Land

August, the protagonist-narrator of this tale of an Iowa farm family over an approximately ten-year period (1943-53), is not a particularly likeable man. Less than honorable, he allows himself to be drawn into a web of lies, deceit and infidelity. Blackmailed and cuckholded (sort of), he gives in to his baser instincts, after becoming party to a cover-up of a murder in his family. Harnack weaves an intricate web in this story of a college-educated farmer who has somewhat ambivalent feelings - at least at first - about being tied to the inexorable rhythms and exhausting routines that farming forces one to adjust to. Aware of a thread of insanity in his wife's family, he and his wife Maureen worry constantly about the erratic behavior of their daughter Sheila, especially after they all become aware of and complicit in the death of Maureen's sister at the hands of her womanizing husband, E.J., who departs soon after for parts unknown. August is left not only with EJ's farm, but also falls prey to an unscrupulous mistress EJ abandoned too, pregnant. The mistress, Betty, tricks August into a compromised situation and institutes a years-long blackmail scheme to support her and the bastard son. Hey, this is kind of a complex story, but a familiar one too in many ways. The dialogue and the inner thoughts of August ring true though, and keep you coming back, page after page, for more, wondering what in the hell will this guy do next?! Harnack's fiction has been compared to Cather and Anderson, but the writer that kept coming to mind as I read LIMITS OF THE LAND was James M. Cain, the author of The Postman Always Rings Twice. It was the cold-blooded way August saw things, I suppose; there is a kind of hard-boiled 'noire' character to this novel. The book was published thirty years ago, but it still seems very relevant - the times, the people, and the importance of the land itself all have a stamp of authenticity. The truth is I liked the book, but I didn't like the narrator very much. - Tim Bazzett, author of LOVE, WAR & POLIO