A Thousand Acres_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [172]
Fiction/Literature/978-1-4000-7602-4
GOOD FAITH
Forthright, likable Joe Stratford is the kind of local businessman everybody trusts, for good reason. But it’s 1982, and even in Joe’s small town, values are in upheaval: not just property values, either. Enter Marcus Burns, a would-be master of the universe whose years with the IRS have taught him which rules are meant to be broken. Before long he and Joe are new best friends—and partners in an investment venture so complex that no one may ever understand it. Add to this Joe’s roller coaster affair with his mentor’s married daughter. The result is as entertaining as any of Smiley’s fiction.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-385-72105-9
THE AGE OF GRIEF
The Age of Grief captures moments of great intimacy with grace, clarity, and indelible emotional power. In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely single woman befriends a married couple, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In “Long Distance,” a man is relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned, while enduring his own complicated sorrow.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-385-72187-5
THE GREENLANDERS
Set in the fourteenth century in Europe’s most far-flung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, sun-warmed meadows, and high, dark mountains, The Greenlanders is the story of one family—proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Jane Smiley takes us into this world of farmers and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and longstanding feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real but dear to us.
Fiction/Literature/978-1-4000-9546-9
ORDINARY LOVE AND GOOD WILL
In Ordinary Love, Smiley focuses on a woman’s infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure. Good Will describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.
Fiction/Literature/978-0-307-27909-5
13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT THE NOVEL
Jane Smiley celebrates the novel—and takes us on an exhilarating tour through one hundred of them—in this immensely rewarding literary tribute. In her inimitable style—exuberant, candid—Smiley explores the power of the novel, looking at its history and variety, its cultural impact, and just how it works its magic. She invites us behind the scenes of novel-writing, sharing her own habits, spilling the secrets of her craft, and offering priceless advice to aspiring authors. As she works her way through one hundred novels—from classics such as the thousand-year-old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Alice Munro—she infects us anew with the passion for reading that is the governing spirit of this gift to book lovers everywhere.
Literary Criticism/Essays/978-1-4000-3318-8
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