One of Ours

Willa Cather’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of World War I

The son of a prosperous farmer, Claude Wheeler’s future is laid out for him as clear and monotonous as the Nebraska sky—a few semesters at the local Christian college followed by marriage and a lifetime spent worrying about the price of wheat. Many young men would be happy to find themselves in Claude’s shoes, but his focus is on the horizon, and on the nagging sense that out there, past the farthest reaches of the Great Plains and beyond the boundaries of convention, his true destiny awaits. When the United States finally enters the war raging in Europe, Claude makes the first, and greatest, decision of his life: He answers the call.

Based on the experiences of Willa Cather’s cousin—G. P. Cather received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Silver Star for bravery in World War I—and interviews she conducted with wounded veterans, One of Ours is the indelible portrait of a man—and a nation—on the cusp of profound and irreversible change.

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