Jane
Smiley has undertaken a daunting task. In the course of three books
she follows the lives of a Midwestern family for one hundred years.
Some
Luck
starts in 1920 and follows an Iowa farming family, Walter and Rosanna
Langdon and their five children, until 1953. Then Early
Warning
picks up the story of Walter and Rosanna's children and
their offspring until 1986. The third book of the trilogy, “Golden
Age”, will be released in the fall and will complete the one
hundred year cycle.
Each
chapter covers a single year, with the point of view switching from
character to character. Smiley clearly understands farming, as some
chapters deal with the intricacies of crop rotation, corn prices,
chickens, pigs and the occasional sheep. But she also captures the
growth of the characters (or lack thereof). Walter remains an
uncomplaining and determined farmer, while Rosanna evolves from
vivacious and beautiful young mother to a somewhat crotchety old
woman who nonetheless learns to drive and widens her view of the
world outside the farm. The children grow from toddlers adults, choosing very different paths.
For the most part they scatter far from the farm, marrying and
starting families. They occasionally brush up against
historic events (Viet Nam, Jim Jones, the AIDS crisis). Smiley does
an admirable job of fleshing out the growing cast of characters. And
it does help that a family tree is included, since I had some trouble
remembering who's child was who's.
But
I had a couple of problems with the format. Jumping forward a year
with each chapter means that there's no real narrative arc, just a
series of unconnected events. And as the novel expands to include
both children and grandchildren of Walter and Rosanna, there are a
lot of storylines to follow.
“Early
Warning” ends with a surprise revelation, and there are many
dangling plot threads that I'm interested in following, so I will
definitely read the third book. But if you're only going to read one
Jane Smiley book, be sure it's “A Thousand Acres” which I
consider to be her masterpiece.
