Jane Smiley: American Author Challenge

Jane Smiley was born, in 1949, in, Los Angeles, Ca. She grew up in a a suburb of St. Louis.
She is a novelist and essayist. She has also wrote several nonfiction books. She published her first novel, Barn Blind, in 1980. She won the Pulitzer Prize for A Thousand Acres, in 1992. She recently finished a trilogy of novels about an Iowa family over the course of several generations, that begins with Some Luck.

**This is part of our American Author Challenge 2016. This author will be read in March. The general discussion thread can be found right here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/209611

I read A Thousand Acres, back in the early '90s and was absolutely floored, how brilliant it was, but like my first experience with Richard Russo and Empire Falls, I failed to follow-up on reading anything else. I blame LT.

I plan on reading Some Luck and hope to also bookhorn in, Early Warning, the 2nd book in the trilogy.

What is your favorite Smiley read? And what do you plan to read, in March?

I will be reading A Thousand Acres, as last year I read King Lear, and it started a whole conversation on my thread about how I needed to read this book.

My third AAC read in three months - look at me being all pure, Mark!! Thanks for setting this up, my friend.

I've listened to Some Luck and enjoyed it.

>4 Crazymamie: You are pure as the driven snow, Mamie... so far, anyway. Grins!

It has been over 20 years since I read A Thousand Acres and it had quite an impact on my reading life. I think your familiarity with King Lear, will definitely add to your enjoyment.

>5 Ameise1: I hope to start it next week, Barb.

I am ready for Smiley! A couple of years ago, I read Moo, which I thought was a real hoot, but I had no luck finding her books in my library-sale ramblings. Persistence pays. I now have A Thousand Acres, Good Faith (both of which are highly recommended by my DIL), and Horse Heaven. If nothing else, I'll read Smiley's Pulitzer-winner, to satisfy both AAC and Pulitzer Challenge. 'K?

I read A Thousand Acres many years ago, pre-LT, and was not taken with it. I haven't read anything else by Jane Smiley except a non-fiction book she put together about crafts in the Catskills. (I wasn't overly impressed with that, either.) I have to admit I had no idea about the link with King Lear when I read the novel, and a better grounding in Shakespeare might have helped me to appreciate it. I am going to give her another try for the challenge, but the only thing I have on hand is The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton, which hasn't received rave reviews. The challenge will be to approach it with an open mind.

I started Moo a few years back but didn't get too far. Now, I'm all geared up to give it another go for this month's challenge.

Karen O.

I'm a Smiley "fan" though I think I've only read two of her books :) I own several more. A Thousand Acres was my first of hers, read for my AP English class in school. So brilliant. And Moo was my second - hilarious.

Mark, I read both years ago, but Straight Man and Moo are linked in my mind as satires of academia. So you might think about trying Moo some time, since you enjoyed SM so much.

This month, I plan to read Horse Heaven (a bit on the chunky side) or one of her earlier works - either Duplicate Keys or The Age of Grief.

I have not read Smiley, but I need to decide if I'll have time to fit her in. I've got a lot going on this month in real life that will cut into reading time.

>10 katiekrug: It looks like I will have to get my mitts on Moo. You were sure on the money, with Straight Man. Smiles...

>11 thornton37814: Hope you can bookhorn her in, Lori.

I have a copy of The All-True Travels and adventures of Lidie Newton which I plan to read.

I have a hold on my library's OverDrive copy of A Thousand Acres. That will give me time to finish King Lear before I read it!

I've bought Some Luck but it is long and I have other tomes on the go, so we'll see. I have good intentions though! I loved Moo when I read it, but that's the only novel of hers I've read.

My library has Some Luck, so that's what I'm going to read. I haven't read anything by her before.

If anyone's looking for a non-fiction Smiley, I can recommend her biography of Charles Dickens. Not too long (about 200 pages), informative, and a look at how his novels and his life intertwined.

>17 kac522: Book Bullet! And I'm hit. I'll have to see if I can find a copy.

>17 kac522: You hit me, too, with that one, Kathy.

>17 kac522: Hmmmm....thanks for that.

I do not have anything by Smiley on my shelves. In other years I would have obtained a book from the library, but, since my goal for this year is to read off my shelves, and I'm way behind in my other reads, I'm going to sit this one out.

I will, however, look forward to reading everybody's comments

>17 kac522: I did not know Smiley wrote a bio on Mr. Dickens. How cool. If you want to read the definitive bio on him, do not forget Charles Dickens: A Life.

I am completely underwhelmed with Some Luck. How disappointing. I should finish it tomorrow. The good news is: I will most likely not have to read the other 2 books in the trilogy. Silver linings, my friends.

>22 msf59: Yep, Mark, Tomalin's biography is definitely the best (have only skimmed at the library--on my wishlist), but what I liked about the Smiley version is that it was short, not overly detailed but had all the important life events, and she even takes time to recommend her favorite ones. So if you're a person that wants to read about Dickens without investing 500+ pages, this is the book for you.

>14 cbl_tn: I started reading A Thousand Acres and wondered how it related to King Lear, which of course I have never read. Wiki provided a list of characters and a synopsis. I didn't read the entire synopsis, just enough to know that it's all going into the dumper. I might read Lear when I'm done with Larry.

>24 weird_O: I finished King Lear in the wee hours last night since I was wide awake thanks to some medicine I'm taking. It's a little more difficult to understand than some of the other Shakespeare plays I've read recently, but that could be due to the file I selected from Project Gutenberg. I'm sure got the gist of the plot. I'm curious to see how it ties into A Thousand Acres. I've read the first chapter, and I hope to read the rest over the weekend.

I keep forgetting to post this. My college friend is married to a Pulitzer winner (one of the journalism categories), and they attended a party last month in celebration of the prize's 100th anniversary. She snagged a picture with Jane Smiley, who, Kristen said, was very gracious and so intelligent. I'm posting the photo here with her permission.

>26 katiekrug: That is seriously cool. Can this college friend of yours be persuaded to join LT? Seems like she belongs here.

>27 laytonwoman3rd: - She totally belongs here, Linda! She was an English major and then a teacher in NYC before staying at home with her three kids. We talk books on Facebook a lot. I keep trying to get her to join LT - maybe when the kids are a bit older (she has twins who are around five and a 1.5 year old...)

>26 katiekrug: That is very cool, KAK! Come on over, Kristen!!

What Mark said, Katie. She sounds like a natural LTer. Cool photo.

I finished A Year at the Races. I know a lot more about horses!

I've started The Age of Grief which is a collection of stories and one novella. I've read the first story, and it was okay. This is some of her earlier work, so I'm interested to see how it compares to others of hers that I've loved (Moo and A Thousand Acres).

 

I finished A Thousand Acres on 3/11/16. For both the AAC and for my Pulitzer Challenge. Excellent book, just excellent. My report, for what it's worth is here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/210740#5510816

I discovered, while struggling with my report, that the book was adapted to the screen, with a script by a woman and direction by a woman. I looked it up on IMDB. Looked at the cast with disappointment. Mr. Darcy as Jess Clark? 'Course it was filmed all but 20 years ago... All the same, I'm not gonna go look for it.

I finished Private Life by Jane Smiley. On my wish list since 2010, I was glad to get to this one via the American Authors Challenge. This was an inside look at an unhappy marriage. Jane Smiley perfectly captured the nuances from first blush through realization.

I never posted that I was going to read Some Luck. I'm done and while I found places where it seemed slow and a bit underwhelming as >22 msf59: suggested, I generally enjoyed it and may try the two following books in the trilogy. The style reminded a bit of Wendell Berry, slow, quiet, understated and yet telling a powerful story of children developing as individuals and finding their places in the world. The rural, sober cadences of the beginning then led to more urban and urbane landscapes.

But, I think one of the issues might have been a seemingly indecisive narrator who told the surface story even as Smiley tried to get into the hearts of minds of the characters.

I finished my very first Jane Smiley read. At Paradise Gate was a wonderful read for me. Overall, a story that speaks to the march of time, the frailty of love, and the depth of compassion that resides within all of us, even when it strained.

Lovely, and I am looking to reading more Jane Smiley books.

I loved A Thousand Acres and I'm grateful for the nudge this challenge gave me to read it. I won't get to another Smiley this month, but I'll try not to wait too long before picking up another of her books.

I finished The Age of Grief last night. It's a short collection of stories and a novella. I found the stories fine but rather forgettable, but the novella was very good... Overall, probably a 3.5 star read for me. I'll try to write up something less off-the-cuff in the next few days.

>35 witchyrichy: I think I feel a lot like you. I have just finished Some Luck and it took just ages to read. It's a lovely book, but slow. At the same time, I liked the development of the children in the family over time, so it's a mixed bag for me.

I read Ordinary Love, a novella. Started out good (a mother reflects on her life and her grown children), but ended up a bit too intense for me. I found it hard to believe the nature of the relationships between the mother and her adult children.

I finished Private Life March 31 late in the evening. It was an intimate look at a marriage set against the larger history of San Francisco. There was a lot of history in San Francisco from 1900 to 1945 and the issues that affected the larger population also affected the couple, particularly the wife, around whom this novel centres. It is powerful and disturbing in the way that it portrays what can happen in a marriage and how that can affect more than the people involved.