Originally published in 1925, ‘The Professor's House’ is the profound study of a middle-aged man’s unhappiness by Willa Cather, an American writer known for her novels of life on the Great Plains, including O Pioneers!, The Song of the Lark, and My Ántonia.
The novel tells the story of its central character, Professor Godfrey St. Peter, in three parts. In the first part, the Professor feels that he is losing control over his life and resists the direction it is taking. He is displeased with his family’s move to a new house, with his daughters being grown and married, and with the death of Tom Outland in the First World War, who was a beloved student and the fiancé of his oldest daughter.
In the second part, the Professor recalls the first-person account of Tom and his explorations in New Mexico. Tom’s goodness and love of nature are a sharp contrast to the materialism and superficiality of the Professor’s new son-in-law and his death has been a great loss to the family. The third section finds the Professor alone, despondent, and losing his will to live while secluded in his old study as the rest of his family is off on vacation. It is a moving and deeply impactful study of fear, mortality, and one man’s struggle to find meaning in his changing life.
