One of ours is divided into two parts: the first half is set in Nebraska where Claude struggles to find his life's purpose: the second part takes place during World War I where he ironically fulfills his romantic idealism on the brutal battlefields of 1918 France. It is the story of a young man born after the American frontier has vanished yet whose quintessentially American restlessness seeks redemption on a frontier far bloodier.

Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist of this beautifully written Pulitzer Prize--winning novel, resembles the youngest son of a peculiarly American fairy tale. His fortune is ready-made for him, but he refuses to settle it. Alienated from his parents, all but rejected by his wife, and dissatisfied with farming, Claude is an idealist without an ideal to cling to. It's only when America enters the First World War that Claude finds the purpose he has searched for.