The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton_ A Novel - Jane Smiley [263]
You have a number of audiences, and they overlap. If you’re lucky, there are some people for whom everything that you write has three or four modes of meaning. That’s a pretty select group, though, and they have to be trained by you. You may never know them, but it’s through reading your work that they become attuned to who you are and what you have to offer. So, when you come along and offer something new, something you haven’t offered in the past, that trained audience says, oh, this fits in this way, and everyone’s pleasure is enhanced.
Q: What about the Smiley neophyte?
A: When I was a student of writing, my goal was to have whatever I wrote go down easily. It’s like Mary Poppins and the medicine she concocts for each of the children; they find it delicious. I’ve always wanted whatever I concocted to go down easily, and whatever was in it that was informational or thematic or enlightening to slide down practically unnoticed by the reader. That has been one of my lifelong goals. That’s what I was sort of sorry about in terms of Lidie’s lack of commercial success. I thought a lot of stuff about that period of American history would go down easily. People who’ve read it have enjoyed it a great deal, but there’s something about the subject or the book cover or the reviews or the karma of the time that made people resist even taking a taste. That interests me—that this one didn’t go down very easily the first time around. My goal in writing is always for my reader to have a wonderful, satisfying time.
The novel that I’m writing now, which is about horse racing, is one I read aloud chapter by chapter to a friend of mine who knows something about horses but is not that interested. He also is not the literary type. I’m always thrilled when he enjoys it. There’s so much stuff, and if it goes down easy for him, it will go down easy for everybody.
Q: Have you a title for the novel?
A: Horse Heaven
Q: A date?
A: Derby Day, 2000.
Q: I trust you won’t be winding down with a memoir any time soon.
A: No way. If you look at yourself, your material comes to an end. If you look out in the world, however, your material is endless. So for a person like me, for whom just the act of writing is a pleasure, to look outward is simply a necessity. The world continues to offer more and more material. I don’t ever want to stop writing about it.
Reading Group Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. Jane Smiley’s has lauded Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’ Cabin for the artistry with which "the power of brilliant analy sis" is "married to great wisdom of feeling." How does The All True Travels of Lidie Newton measure up to this standard?
2. Why does Ms. Smiley choose to describe Lidie’s adventures as "all-true" in the title of her novel? How would this work dif fer had the author chosen to turn her research into a narrative of nonfiction?
3. How does the novel authenticate as well as undermine myths about the North and the South in antebellum America? What traditional notions about frontier life, Westward expansion and gender roles are confirmed or challenged?
4. After her husband’s death, Lidie describes herself as a "new person," one she "never desired or expected to be." What is the relationship of her former self to her present self? What are the roles of chance, will, and ambition in the shaping o Lidie’s life and character?
5. How does landscape function as a major character in the novel?
6. Of the Kansas Territory, Lidie writes, "you could easily act one way one minute and another way the next minute." What is the relationship between Lidie’s character in the place she inhabits? How does the K.T.’s lack of definition make possible her discovery