The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [0]
Title Page
Acknowledgments
"Engaging... [A] Harrowing Adventure...
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER I - I Eavesdrop, and Hear III of Myself
CHAPTER 2 - I Become Acquainted with Mr. Thomas Newton
CHAPTER 3 - I Improve My Friendship with Mr. Newton
CHAPTER 4 - I Embark on the Ida Marie
CHAPTER 5 - I Am Much Daunted by New Experiences
CHAPTER 6 - I Enter Kansas Territory
CHAPTER 7 - I Am Taken in by Some Citizens of Lawrence
CHAPTER 8 - I Make an Unexpected Purchase, and Suffer an Expected Illness
CHAPTER 9 - I Begin Life on Our Claim
CHAPTER 10 - I Broaden My Acquaintance
CHAPTER 11 - I Am Surprised and Then Surprised Again
CHAPTER 12 - I Am Swept Up by Events
CHAPTER 13 - I Discover Something About Advertising
CHAPTER 14 - I Do Yet Another Thing I Have Never Done Before
CHAPTER 15 - I Warm Up
CHAPTER 16 - I Am Hopeful, and Receive a Surprise
CHAPTER 17 - I See the Bottom of the Well
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER 18 - I Reconnoiter
CHAPTER 19 - I Go Among the Enemy
CHAPTER 20 - Lyman Arquette Investigates
CHAPTER 21 - Lyman Arquette Finds Success
CHAPTER 22 - I Am Taken In
CHAPTER 23 - I Improve My Acquaintance with Papa
CHAPTER 24 - I Am Doubly Surprised
CHAPTER 25 - I Am Recognized
CHAPTER 26 - I Sully My Character
CHAPTER 27 - I Backtrack
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton
A Conversation with Jane Smiley
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
Praise for Jane Smiley A Thousand Acres
About the Author
ALSO BY JANE SMILEY
Copyright Page
"Engaging... [A] Harrowing Adventure...
This picaresque tale presents a series of remarkable characters, particularly in the inexperienced narrator, whose graphic descriptions of travel and domestic life before the Civil War strip away romantic notions of simpler times.... Smiley has created an authentic voice in this struggle of a young woman to live simply amid a swirl of deadly antagonism."
—The Christian Science Monitor
"A fine historical novel that describes a fascinating time and place ... It is both funny and subtle, rich in ideas ... Smiley has created a better all-around piece of fiction than any of her previous work, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning A Thousand Acres."
—The Wall Street Journal
"Smiley is a writer of rare versatility who travels widely in her creative endeavors. She proved her mastery of both short fiction and the novel with three sterling works (The Age of Grief, Ordinary Love and Good Will, and A Thousand Acres); her fondness for history had already been established with The Greelanders. In 1995, she successfully extended her repertoire to comedy with the hilarious academic satire Moo. What her new novel shares with all these works is its authorial intelligence."
—The Boston Sunday Globe
"Jane Smiley is nothing if not protean, a literary ventriloquist of incredible range.... This is a novel that manages to combine the evocative storyteller’s voice with the moviemaker’s sense of drama and visuals, an old-fashioned tale told with contemporary steam and panache."
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Not only is this a rollicking feminist tale of a woman who can handle herself in the thick of the Kansas Wars, The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton is also a coming of age story as well as a lasting portrait of the genuinely tumultuous time just before the Civil War."
—The Raleigh News & Observer
"A tale of love and war, revenge and betrayal, Smiley’s fictional memoir invites comparisons with Gone with the Wind, even War and Peace.... Lidie Newton has the ring of honesty and truth. It also carries the stamp of its author’s historical sense, stylistic verve, and moral passion."
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"Full of the same arresting authenticity of detail that carried A Thousand Acres."
—New York Daily News
"Lidie Is an Unforgettable Character....The All-True Travels is a showcase for Smiley’s range and dexterity, dead-on in its emotional impact and resonant in the painful truths it conveys."
—San Diego Union-Tribune
"Rendered in sharply lucid prose and filled with wonderful period detail