This sturdy 1930s town, surrounded by the cornfields of southern Minnesota, is home to German-speaking immigrants, hard-working farmers who make sure their town functions properly: it has a hospital, post office, schools, stores, churches, grain elevators. A town to be proud of. But during the course of small-town daily life, startling events take place. A young girl engaged to a missionary is tricked into a disastrous marriage with another man. The Jungas hardware store burns to the ground. Church burial is denied to a suicide. Then there is the struggle between the rigidly conservative and...