By Jane Smiley (Mantle, £18.99)
The American author Jane Smiley won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1991 novel A Thousand Acres, which retold the story of King Lear. Early Warning is the second instalment in her “Last Hundred Years” trilogy, an umbrella title as direct and unfussy as the novels it contains. Where the first part, Some Luck (2014), followed the six children of Iowan farmers Walter and Rosanna from 1920 to 1953, Early Warning runs to 1987 in the company of their growing Langdon family tree. Brisk chapters bustle through one year to the next, cutting between some two dozen characters dispersed across the United States.
As historical landmarks glide by—John F Kennedy, the Beatles, the rise of Aids—no single story takes centre stage: Smiley devotes equal scrutiny to descriptions of toddlers and housework as she does to more dramatic segments about a grandson’s death in Vietnam and the breakdown of an in-law who works for the CIA. The writing sparkles most when it turns to lust, which fuels several of the episodes: one storyline follows a closeted literary scholar, while another involves tit-for-tat adultery as an alcoholic housewife gets entangled with an exploitative therapist after her arms-dealing husband starts frequenting prostitutes. With a satirical edge that avoids cruelty, Smiley offers an enjoyable and addictive profusion of stories.
While there’s no overarching plot this remains an old-fashioned pleasure—the novel moves forward, one event after another, avoiding flashbacks, leaps forward or any other intrusion. The final volume, The Golden Age, arrives in the autumn.
The American author Jane Smiley won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1991 novel A Thousand Acres, which retold the story of King Lear. Early Warning is the second instalment in her “Last Hundred Years” trilogy, an umbrella title as direct and unfussy as the novels it contains. Where the first part, Some Luck (2014), followed the six children of Iowan farmers Walter and Rosanna from 1920 to 1953, Early Warning runs to 1987 in the company of their growing Langdon family tree. Brisk chapters bustle through one year to the next, cutting between some two dozen characters dispersed across the United States.
As historical landmarks glide by—John F Kennedy, the Beatles, the rise of Aids—no single story takes centre stage: Smiley devotes equal scrutiny to descriptions of toddlers and housework as she does to more dramatic segments about a grandson’s death in Vietnam and the breakdown of an in-law who works for the CIA. The writing sparkles most when it turns to lust, which fuels several of the episodes: one storyline follows a closeted literary scholar, while another involves tit-for-tat adultery as an alcoholic housewife gets entangled with an exploitative therapist after her arms-dealing husband starts frequenting prostitutes. With a satirical edge that avoids cruelty, Smiley offers an enjoyable and addictive profusion of stories.
While there’s no overarching plot this remains an old-fashioned pleasure—the novel moves forward, one event after another, avoiding flashbacks, leaps forward or any other intrusion. The final volume, The Golden Age, arrives in the autumn.
