O. E. Rolvaag’s great psychological study of immigrants settling the Great Plains begins with Giants in the Earth, a powerful depiction of the fortunes of Norwegian families trying to conquer a deceptive, almost malevolent environment without being assimilated culturally into a new and potentially hostile nation. We follow these giants (and make no mistake about it: giants they were) as they feud and toil and suffer and praise God and fight to raise farms and families out of desperate straits. We cheer the Holm family, led by stoic, persevering Per Hansa and his homesick, devoutly religious wife Beret as they defiantly, taciturnly, and even grimly deal with the cruel set of problems facing every immigrant to a new world.

Fewer people, however, go on to read Peder Victorious and Their Fathers’ God, the second and third books in this dark, thought-provoking trilogy. Peder Victorious, Per and Beret’s youngest son, is the protagonist (I won’t call him the hero) of the second volume where Rolvaag gives us a carefully wrought analysis of the displacement felt by first-generation immigrants who feel unrooted and torn between two cultures while secure in neither. Peder’s battle to separate himself from the dominance of his mother Beret and her strong Lutheran faith, his growing urge to be part of a new community with new ways and rules, and his determination to make something different of himself are palpable, and Beret’s equally powerful determination to hold fast to Norwegian customs and values provides much psychological tension and a few dramatic moments. Toward the end of Peder Victorious, I was held spellbound as Beret comes to the conclusion God wants her to burn down the schoolhouse where her son performs in a play, and I couldn’t stop reading as she set out to do just that.

The most introspective, soul-searching part of this masterfully written trilogy is volume three, Their Fathers’ God, where the friction between new immigrants (in this case between the Norwegians and the Irish) produces social, political, and religious clashes that alter lives, families, and a nation. Secularist Peder Holm and his Irish Catholic wife Susie wrestle cunningly, viciously, and frustratingly over religion, and they aren’t helped by elder Beret Holm’s devout Lutheran outlook on life. Peder and Susie are strongly bound by their genuine love for each other while at the same time they are ripped apart by their views on religion. Peder sees Susie’s strong Roman Catholicism as superstition and hocus-pocus that priests use to hold power over the community while Susie fears her husband’s non-belief will damn his soul to hell, and she’ll have none of it.

In his trilogy, Rolvaag beautifully captures the psychological ordeals facing immigrants to any new country and leaves readers with plenty to think about. When readers finish Their Fathers’ God, they can ask along with Peder Holm, “Where do we go from here?”

Don’t stop reading after you finish Giants in the Earth! Continue the long trek of immigration through Peder Victorious and Their Fathers’ God to its ultimate consummation . . . and conundrum.

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Rating	4.5 (595 ratings)
Price	$8.98
Category	Anthologies

Giants in the Earth: A Saga of the Prairie (Perennial Classics)