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The Long Love is the final installment of Pearl S. Buck's American trilogy, originally written under the male pen name John Sedges. Unlike the Chinese sagas for which the author is famous, this is an intimate, American novel about a marriage — a portrait of a marriage with all its secrets and disappointments.

At its center are Edward "Ned" Haslatt, a sensitive and devoted man, and his wife Margaret, a strong and composed woman who refuses to be gentle at the expense of the truth. Ned never thinks of another woman; he loves Margaret with a devotion that begins with the engagement and grows with the years. But Margaret has a rival more dangerous than any lover — her own untamed temper.

Even in their engagement days, Margaret openly tells Ned that she will have to get stronger, because she does not intend to walk around his sensibilities. Thus, the marriage turns into a silent battle of two strong but different natures: Ned's idealized loyalty versus Margaret's harsh pragmatism.

Buck enters the heart of a male character with rare empathy—unusual for both literature and life. The novel does not resort to grand dramas; its drama is simply the everyday life of marriage—the tenderness, the small hurts, the small victories and defeats through which two people seek "long love," a love that does not burn out but matures with age.