Prairie Fires

Most of us are familiar with the ‘Little House on the Prairie’ books, if only by reputation:  A spunky pioneer girl and her family overcome tremendous obstacles to carve out a living on the American frontier through hard work, love, and reciprocal neighborliness.  And while this mostly upbeat narrative is by no means a flight of fancy, the books themselves are considered fact-based fiction for reasons that “Prairie Fires” makes abundantly clear.  For example, many significant incidents in the Ingalls and Wilder family sagas were left out entirely, while others were altered to serve the purposes of story.

Before reading this book, I was vaguely aware that Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, played a role in bringing the Little House books to publication.  Yet I was surprised to learn the depth and breadth of Rose’s contribution to the series.  Lane, an author and journalist in her own right, was a gifted editor who put much of the literary polish on her mother’s novels that made them suitable for publication.  The two women had an intense relationship – both personal and professional - that was often quite rancorous, but which was functional enough to produce the much-loved series.

“Prairie Fires” won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Biography.