The Town (1950 novel)

The Town

First edition
Author	Conrad Richter
Country	United States
Language	English
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	1950
Published in English	24 April 1950
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Preceded by	The Trees, The Fields

The Town (1950) is a novel written by American author Conrad Richter. It is the third installment of his trilogy The Awakening Land. The Trees (1940) and The Fields (1946) were the earlier portions of the series. The Town was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1951.

In September 1966, his publisher Alfred A. Knopf reissued the trilogy for the first time as a single hardcover volume. According to the edition notice of this all-in-one version—which lists the original publication dates of the three books -- The Town was first published on 24 April 1950.

The Town, the third novel in Conrad Richter’s Awakening Land trilogy, continues the story of frontier woman Sayward (née Luckett) Wheeler and her family. At 280 pages, the book is considerably longer than the other books of the trilogy. The focus of this final book is on the dramatic changes to the town and region with rapid development and industrialization. The theme is dealing with change. Sayward lives through the development of her Ohio Valley settlement into a thriving town, with a variety of businesses and industry. She becomes wealthy by pioneer standards by selling off parcels of her own land to newcomers.

The town changes its name from Moonshine Church to Americus in a successful quest to be named the county seat. The town government constructs civic improvements such as a new bridge and canal. Sayward’s husband, Portius Wheeler, convinces her to give up their old log cabin and move into a fine new brick mansion house he builds in the downtown section of Americus. He believes this is in keeping with his position as the town's attorney. Sayward eventually gets used to the luxury of her new home, but also feels a sense of loss for her former frontier way of life.

Sayward is reunited with two long-lost members of her family, who were introduced in the earlier books of the trilogy. Her father, Worth Luckett, had abandoned the family to live a hunter’s life after his favorite child, Sulie, was lost in the forest. After an absence of many years, he returns to Americus and tries to re-establish relationships with his grown children. On his deathbed, Worth confides that he found their sister Sulie alive; she had become fully assimilated as a Lenape (Delaware Indian) and married a Lenape man. Sayward and her remaining sister, Genny, travel to the Indiana town where Sulie resides and try to reconnect with her. Sulie claims not to know them as she is now part of the tribe and does not want to leave. Her sisters conclude Sulie is lost to them.