The Stranger’s Return

Louise Storr, a recently divorced New Yorker, travels west to Iowa to visit her paternal grandfather, a relation she has never met. Grandpa Storr, an 85-year-old patriarch, presides over his large farm and its employees, where a number of distant relatives have long made the house their home. They greet the city-girl granddaughter with reserved solicitude, and Louise quickly senses a web of loyalties and tensions that animate the place.

She soon meets the owner of the adjoining property, the married farmer Guy Crane, a college-educated Iowan she finds attractive. It is revealed that Guy’s college thesis paper was published and drew interest from Cornell University (p. 109).

Grandpa Storr’s unconcealed preference for Louise creates tension in the household. She is tested by the resident relatives and farm hands in her performance of her duties on the spread. Her essential good sense and self-esteem serve her well, despite her urban upbringing.

Grandpa Storr, a Civil War veteran, begins to display signs of dementia and the coterie of resident relatives quickly calls for a mental evaluation to deem him legally unfit to operate the farm. The old man’s apparent descent into madness is only a clever ruse to expose their avarice. He alters his will to disinherit the scheming relations and bequeaths the farm to Louise — the medical examiners acting as witnesses. His ultimate task in life completed, he dies peacefully.

To put an end to a blossoming romance between himself and Louise, Guy Crane announces that he and his wife will sell their farm and go to the city, where he will presumably teach agriculture.

“[t]o the city”

Louise assumes her position as owner and operator of her grandfather’s farm, deeply committed to her ancestral land.

Last Updated: October 09, 2025 at 09:29