Perkins is a professor of American and English literature and film. In this essay, Perkins explores the interplay of past and present in the story.

Mary Lavin published several stories in the 1960s that explore the often devastating sense of loss experienced by women after the death of their husbands. The recently widowed, unnamed main character of “In the Middle of the Fields,” one of the most compelling of these “widow stories,” struggles to survive the loss of her husband as she takes over the operation of their farm. While she determines to live in the present and establish a sense of continuity for herself,” she is forced to recognize the strong pull of a past that interferes with her attempts to create an independent, secure sense of self.

Richard F. Peterson notes, in his article on Mary Lavin in Modern Fiction Studies, that her widow stories...