So Big by Edna Ferber (1925)

This is a Parnasuss Book recommendation that is 100 years old, amazingly enough. It won the Pullitzer Prize and was apparently well loved when it came out. Selina is the mother and Dirk is the son--the story centers on the two of them. Selina is is persistant, and even when widowed, she keeps the farm and goes about making her way. SAhe wasnts everything for DIrk, and encourages him to aim high, educationally and vocationally--which he does, and he is quite successful at that. What he is not so successful with is love, and maybe Selina didn't role model well for him there, but Dirk basically wants what he cannot have when it comes to romance, and denies that it is an issue. THe other thing that happens here is that when the son moves away and experiences the big city and the modern world, it distances him from his mother--he doesn't try to set that right, and he wlso doesn't see what she is doing. She has become a sought after grower of asparagus, people are wowed by what she has accomplished, but DIrk is unable to see her that way, and they are inevitably seperated by it. The book was inspired by the life of Antje Paarlberg in the Dutch community of South Holland, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She came to AMerica in the mid-19th century, having lost her husband on the journey over from the Netherlands, and many of her children. It is a character of perserverance. It is not an uplifting read, but it is a window into American history.