Tag Archives: jane smiley

February 6, 2024 · 2:54 pm

A Dangerous Business – Jane Smiley

I ordered this one in because I am going to see Jane Smiley at the Perth Writers Festival.

Here’s the blurb …

From the beloved Pulitzer Prize-winning and best-selling author of A Thousand Acres: a mystery set in 1850s Gold Rush California, as two young prostitutes—best friends Eliza and Jean—follow a trail of missing girls.

Monterey, 1851. Ever since her husband was killed in a bar fight, Eliza Ripple has been working in a brothel. It seems like a better life, at least at first. The madam, Mrs. Parks, is kind, the men are (relatively) well behaved, and Eliza has attained what few women have: financial security. But when the dead bodies of young women start appearing outside of town, a darkness descends that she can’t resist confronting. Side by side with her friend Jean, and inspired by her reading, especially by Edgar Allan Poe’s detective Dupin, Eliza pieces together an array of clues to try to catch the killer, all the while juggling clients who begin to seem more and more suspicious.

Eliza and Jean are determined not just to survive, but to find their way in a lawless town on the fringes of the Wild West—a bewitching combination of beauty and danger—as what will become the Civil War looms on the horizon. As Mrs. Parks says, “Everyone knows that this is a dangerous business, but between you and me, being a woman is a dangerous business, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise …

I like Jane Smiley and I have read several of her novels. This one is not my favourite, it seemed a bit confused. Is it a detective story? A more literary character driven novel? I did like all of the Poe references.

A review

Golden Age – Jane Smiley

I read this straight after Early Warning, so that I would have all of the characters and plot lines straight in my head. I struggled a bit with the gap between Some Luck and Early Warning.

Here is the blurb …

A lot can happen in one hundred years, as Jane Smiley shows to dazzling effect in her Last Hundred Years trilogy. But as Golden Age, its final installment, opens in 1987, the next generation of Langdons face economic, social, political—and personal—challenges unlike anything their ancestors have encountered before.

Michael and Richie, the rivalrous twin sons of World War II hero Frank, work in the high-stakes world of government and finance in Washington and New York, but they soon realize that one’s fiercest enemies can be closest to home; Charlie, the charming, recently found scion, struggles with whether he wishes to make a mark on the world; and Guthrie, once poised to take over the Langdons’ Iowa farm, is instead deployed to Iraq, leaving the land—ever the heart of this compelling saga—in the capable hands of his younger sister.

Determined to evade disaster, for the planet and her family, Felicity worries that the farm’s once-bountiful soil may be permanently imperiled, by more than the extremes of climate change. And as they enter deeper into the twenty-first century, all the Langdon women—wives, mothers, daughters—find themselves charged with carrying their storied past into an uncertain future.

Combining intimate drama, emotional suspense, and a full command of history, Golden Age brings to a magnificent conclusion the century-spanning portrait of this unforgettable family—and the dynamic times in which they’ve loved, lived, and died: a crowning literary achievement from a beloved master of American storytelling.

As you can see from the blurb, this continues the story (saga) of the Langdon family. Some bits of this I really enjoyed – Andy recovering from her alcohol addiction getting her own back on Michael and his dodgy financial practices, but found the extrapolation into the future unsettling (that might have been the point) and Guthrie’s fate was very upsetting. Once again, it is beautifully written in simple prose. It reminds me a bit of Forrest Gump in that the Langdon family just happen to be around for significant historical events, but these novels cover a huge range of history and how the events affected different segments of society.

More reviews …

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/21/golden-age-jane-smiley-review-final-volume-the-last-hundred-years-trilogy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/golden-age-review-jane-smiley-brings-america-into-the-age-of-terror/2015/10/12/b64bba0e-701f-11e5-8d93-0af317ed58c9_story.html

Early Warning – Jane Smiley

This is the second novel is Jane Smiley’s trilogy The Last One Hundred Years – it started with Some Luck. I enjoyed reading Some Luck but took my time getting this second volume (I did move straight onto the third though – Golden Age – but more of that later).

Here is the blurb …

From the Pulitzer Prize winner: a journey through mid-century America, as lived by the extraordinary Langdon family we first met in Some Luck, a national best seller published to rave reviews from coast to coast.

Early Warning opens in 1953 with the Langdons at a crossroads. Their stalwart patriarch Walter, who with his wife had sustained their Iowa farm for three decades, has suddenly died, leaving their five children looking to the future. Only one will remain to work the land, while the others scatter to Washington, DC, California, and everywhere in between. As the country moves out of postwar optimism through the Cold War, the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s and ’70s, and then into the unprecedented wealth—for some—of the early ’80s, the Langdon children will have children of their own: twin boys who are best friends and vicious rivals; a girl whose rebellious spirit takes her to the notorious Peoples Temple in San Francisco; and a golden boy who drops out of college to fight in Vietnam—leaving behind a secret legacy that will send shockwaves through the Langdon family into the next generation. Capturing an indelible period in America through the lens of richly drawn characters we come to know and love, Early Warning is an engrossing, beautifully told story of the challenges—and rich rewards—of family and home, even in the most turbulent of times.

Out of the three novels this has been my favourite – I felt I learned a bit of American social history (Peoples Temple, the cold war spy drama, etc) and the characters are so diverse but equally beautifully written. This novel reminds me a bit of Middlemarch in its sprawling nature with a lot of characters and plot lines. This novel is about individual characters, but it also tells the story of a particular country at a particular time.

More reviews …

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/apr/30/early-warning-jane-smiley-review-american-tolstoy

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/early-warning-by-jane-smiley-book-review-the-complete-chronicle-of-american-life-10215664.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/jane-smileys-elegiac-look-at-an-american-family-in-early-warning/2015/04/27/9f56ab4a-e525-11e4-905f-cc896d379a32_story.html

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Tagged as early warning, jane smiley, smiley jane

March 19, 2015 · 10:22 am

Some Luck – Jane Smiley

This was a Christmas present – I liked A Thousand Acres, so I was keen to read this one.

Here is the blurb …

On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn first-born; Joe, whose love of animals makes him the natural heir to his family’s land; Lillian, an angelic child who enters a fairy-tale marriage with a man only she will fully know; Henry, the bookworm who’s not afraid to be different; and Claire, who earns the highest place in her father’s heart. Moving from post-World War I America through the early 1950s, Some Luck gives us an intimate look at this family’s triumphs and tragedies, zooming in on the realities of farm life, while casting-as the children grow up and scatter to New York, California, and everywhere in between-a panoramic eye on the monumental changes that marked the first half of the twentieth century. Rich with humor and wisdom, twists and surprises, Some Luck takes us through deeply emotional cycles of births and deaths, passions, and betrayals, displaying Smiley’s dazzling virtuosity, compassion, and understanding of human nature and the nature of history, never discounting the role of fate and chance. This potent conjuring of many lives across generations is a stunning tour de force.

I enjoyed this and will definitely read the next installment. I really enjoy what is probably best described as domestic fiction – the nitty-gritty of everyday lives. Although the focus of this novel is narrow – one family – what they experience and endure covers an enormous amount of early 20th century American life – the changes to farming practice, the droughts, the depression (this bit was fascinating because they had a farm and could fed themselves they really didn’t need much money), World War 2 and the Cold War. The writing is beautiful – the settings evocative and the characters all brilliantly portrayed and remarkably different.

More reviews …

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/nov/05/some-luck-jane-smiley-review-first-volume-last-hundred-years-trilogy

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/09/books/review/jane-smiley-some-luck-review.html?_r=0

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Filed under Fiction, Recommended

Tagged as jane smiley, some luck