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Jess Clark’s past and present are nearly as convoluted as the Cooks’. At the age of eighteen, Jess leaves home and joins the army, but after he witnesses the abuse of a fellow trainee, he flees to Canada. Jess represents the future of farming, a future of sustainable methods and smaller scale, much like the way the Ericsons farmed. The traditional farmers—Harold, Loren, Larry, Ty, and Pete—consider him a fool who farms by the book, not by experience. Jess’s relationships are messy. He abandons his mother even when she is dying. He is angry at his parents for not seeing his point of view about the war. Jess has affairs with two of the Cook sisters and moves in with one after her husband’s death. He fights with his obstinate father but reconciles with him later. When Jess finds out that Pete was the one who caused his father’s blindness, he leaves Rose without explanation. Jess plays the role of handsome distraction, but he is not a man of substance. He is indecisive about everything, including farming and love. Readers are not sure if it is Jess on the other end of Ginny’s phone call, but it would not be a surprise if he simply did not want to admit to ever being in Iowa at all.

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