Jane Smiley – författare

In Iceland, the age of the Vikings is also known as the Saga Age. A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world’s great literary treasures – as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set around the turn of the last millennium, these stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norse men and women who first settled in Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured farther west to Greenland and, ultimately, North America. Sailing as far from the archetypal heroic adventure as the long ships did from home, the Sagas are written with psychological intensity, peopled by characters with depth, and explore perennial human issues like love, hate, fate and freedom.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning, bestselling novel from one of America’s greatest contemporary writers.Larry Cook’s farm is the largest in Zebulon County, Iowa, and a tribute to his hard work and single-mindedness. Proud and possessive, his sudden decision to retire and hand over the farm to his three daughters, is disarmingly uncharacteristic.Ginny and Rose, the two eldest, are startled yet eager to accept, but Caroline, the youngest daughter, has misgivings. Immediately, her father cuts her out.In A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley transposes the King Lear story to the modern day, and in so doing at once illuminates Shakespeare’s original and subtly transforms it. This astonishing novel won both of America’s highest literary awards, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award.

This novel tells the story of a group of six friends whose close and longstanding relationship begins to fall apart when two of them are brutally murdered. Suspicion falls on all of them as their infidelities and lies begin to come to the surface.

In his bedroom upstairs, 77-year-old Ike Robinson is dying. Down in the living room his wife, Anna, defends the citadel of their marriage against an ill-considered, albeit loving, invasion by their three middle-aged daughters and 23-year-old granddaughter. By the author of "A Thousand Acres".

Brilliantly funny satire set in a contemporary American university.Deep in the wheatfields of the American midwest, Moo University is in a state of disarray…In this witty and biting comedy of manners, Jane Smiley turns her wryly perceptive eye towards a community where men and women, the innocent and the cynical, thinkers and careerists, live and work together – in complete disharmony.‘Satire on a grand scale, a microscopic examination of contemporary American mores conducted with great wit and gracious indulgence for human frailty …Trying to describe this book's marvellous variety is like trying to describe London to someone who has never been there. The only appropriate exhortation is "Read it."'

An American classic from the bestselling author of the Pulitzer-winning A Thousand Acres.Lidie Newton is an extraordinary female protagonist, a genuine Great American Character, like Huck Finn or Isabel Archer.Lidie and her abolitionist husband join the pioneering westward migration into America’s heartland in the middle of the last century. Together with their family and friends, they find themselves caught amidst two great American forces.Vicious arguments about freeing slaves, political shenanigans and peacocking encounters over claims to land are about to erupt into the bloodiest war the world has yet see-the American Civil War.Against this chaotic background,The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton soars across the vista of the birth of the modern United States of America.This classic American novel shows, through the eyes of one remarkable woman, how shattering, tragic and resilient the history of that land is.

The verdant pastures of the Karlson farm in Illinois have the placid charm of a landscape painting, but the horses that graze there have become the consuming obsession of a woman who sees in them the ultimate fulfilment of her every wish - to win, to be honoured, to be the best. Her vaulting ambition becomes a tragically destructive force; a force that will drive a wedge between her and her family, and have unforeseen and brutal consequences for them all...

From the author of the Pulitzer-winning A Thousand Acres, two novellas which showcase Jane Smiley’s unique gift for capturing the nuances of American domestic life.‘I have given my children the two cruellest gifts I had to give… the experience of perfect family happiness and the certain knowledge that it could not last.’ So says the narrator of Ordinary Love, the first of two thematically linked novellas, each investigating the dream of the perfect family.Ordinary Love gives voice to a mother, loving but unsure of her love’s value. In forfeiting her powerful husband she fears that she has done her children – insecure Joe; restless Michael; cynical Ellen – irrevocable harm.Good Will, by contrast, is the story of a father, a relentlessly self-sufficient man determined to live apart from a coarsely materialistic world. In his singlemindedness, he does not see the damage he is causing until it is too late: his domestic idyll explodes in a frenzy of discontent.Together, the novellas raise a multitude of questions – about being a parent and being a child; about the desire to control other people and the need to compromise.

In Iceland, the age of the Vikings is also known as the Saga Age. A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world’s great literary treasures – as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set around the turn of the last millennium, these stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norse men and women who first settled in Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured farther west to Greenland and, ultimately, North America. Sailing as far from the archetypal heroic adventure as the long ships did from home, the Sagas are written with psychological intensity, peopled by characters with depth, and explore perennial human issues like love, hate, fate and freedom.

The best new American voices are heard here first: Writers like Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000.The new volume features a new crop of promising stories selected by renowned novelist Jane Smiley, who continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers.Culled from hundreds of writing programs like the Iowa Writers' Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences like Sewanee and Bread Loaf-and including a complete list of contact information for these programs-this exciting collection showcases tomorrow's literary stars.

In the aftermath of the 2003 Academy Awards, Max and Elena- he''s an Oscar-winning writer/director-open their Holywood Hills home to a group of friends and neighbors, industy insiders and hangers-on, eager to escape the outside world and dissect the latest news, gossip, and secrets of the business. Over the next ten days, old lovers collide, new relationships form, and sparks fly, all with Smiley''s signature sparkling wit and characterization. With its breathtaking passion and sexy irreverence, Ten Days in the Hills is a glowing addition to the work of one of our most beloved novelists.From the Trade Paperback edition.

See the difference, read #1 bestselling author Jane Smiley in Large Print* About Large PrintAll Random House Large Print editions are published in a 16-point typefaceSix years after her Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller, A Thousand Acres, and three years after her witty, acclaimed, and best-selling novel of academe, Moo, Jane Smiley once again demonstrates her extraordinary range and brilliance.Her new novel, set in the 1850s, speaks to us in a splendidly quirky voice--the strong, wry, no-nonsense voice of Lidie Harkness of Quincy, Illinois, a young woman of courage, good sense, and good heart. It carries us into an America so violently torn apart by the question of slavery that it makes our current political battlegrounds seem a peaceable kingdom. Lidie is hard to scare. She is almost shockingly alive--a tall, plain girl who rides and shoots and speaks her mind, and whose straightforward ways paradoxically amount to a kind of glamour. We see her at twenty, making a good marriage--to Thomas Newton, a steady, sweet-tempered Yankee who passes through her hometown on a dangerous mission. He belongs to a group of rashly brave New England abolitionists who dedicate themselves to settling the Kansas Territory with like-minded folk to ensure its entering the Union as a Free State.Lidie packs up and goes with him. And the novel races alongside them into the Territory, into the maelstrom of "Bloody Kansas," where slaveholding Missourians constantly and viciously clash with Free Staters, where wandering youths kill you as soon as look at you--where Lidie becomes even more fervently abolitionist than her husband as the young couple again and again barely escape entrapment in webs of atrocity on both sides of the great question.And when, suddenly, cold-blooded murder invades her own intimate circle, Lidie doesn''t falter. She cuts off her hair, disguises herself as a boy, and rides into Missouri in search of the killers--a woman in a fiercely male world, an abolitionist spy in slave territory. On the run, her life threatened, her wits sharpened, she takes on yet another identity--and, in the very midst of her masquerade, discovers herself.Lidie grows increasingly important to us as we follow her travels and adventures on the feverish eve of the War Between the States. With its crackling portrayal of a totally individual and wonderfully articulate woman, its storytelling drive, and its powerful recapturing of an almost forgotten part of the American story, this is Jane Smiley at her enthralling and enriching best.From the Trade Paperback edition.

A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life, from the 1880s to World War II.Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty-seven in post–Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He’s the most famous man their small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer—a genius who, according to the local paper, has changed the universe. Margaret’s mother calls the match “a piece of luck.”Margaret is a good girl who has been raised to marry, yet Andrew confounds her expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in faraway California. Soon she comes to understand that his devotion to science leaves precious little room for anything, or anyone, else. When personal tragedies strike and when national crises envelop the country, Margaret stands by her husband. But as World War II approaches, Andrew’s obsessions take a different, darker turn, and Margaret is forced to reconsider the life she has so carefully constructed.Private Life is a beautiful evocation of a woman’s inner world: of the little girl within the hopeful bride, of the young woman filled with yearning, and of the faithful wife who comes to harbor a dangerous secret. But it is also a heartbreaking portrait of marriage and the mysteries that endure even in lives lived side by side; a wondrously evocative historical panorama; and, above all, a masterly, unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers.From the Hardcover edition.

Alice Ellis is a Midwestern refugee living in Manhattan. Still recovering from a painful divorce, she depends on the companionship and camaraderie of tightly knit circle of friends. At the center of this circle is a rock band struggling to navigate New York’s erratic music scene, and an apartment/practice space with approximately fifty key-holders. One sunny day, Alice enters the apartment and finds two of the band members shot dead. As the double-murder sends waves of shock through their lives, this group of friends begins to unravel, and dangerous secrets are revealed one by one. When Alice begins to notice things amiss in her own apartment, the tension breaks out as it occurs to her that she is not the only person with a key, and she may not get a chance to change the locks.Jane Smiley applies her distinctive rendering of time, place, and the enigmatic intricacies of personal relationships to the twists and turns of suspense. The result is a brilliant literary thriller that will keep readers guessing up to its final, shocking conclusion.From the Trade Paperback edition.

The luminous novella and stories in The Age of Grief explore the vicissitudes of love, friendship, and marriage with all the compassion and insight that have come to be expected from Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize—winning author of A Thousand Acres.In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In “Long Distance,” a man finds himself 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 incandescently 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 maintaining the secret of his own complicated sorrow. Beautifully written, with a wry intelligence and a lively comic touch, The Age of Grief captures moments of great intimacy with grace, clarity, and indelible emotional power.From the Trade Paperback edition.

"The emotional and moral complexity that [Jane Smiley] uncovers in the characters of these resonant novellas confirms [her] singular talent. ORDINARY LOVE & GOOD WILL is an extraordinary achievement."THE WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLDORDINARY LOVEAt a reunion with her grown children, a woman recalls the long-ago affair that ended her relationship with their father--and changed all their lives irrevocably.GOOD WILLDespite the carefully self-sufficient life he has designed for his small family, a man discovers that even the right choices have unexpected consequences--sometimes heart-breaking ones.From the Paperback edition.

This powerful twentieth-century reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear centers on a wealthy Iowa farmer who decides to divide his farm between his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. Ambitiously conceived and stunningly written, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride—and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.

Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author Jane Smiley’s The Greenlanders is an enthralling novel in the epic tradition of the old Norse sagas.Set in the fourteenth century in Europe’s most farflung outpost, a land of glittering fjords, blasting winds, 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, priests, and lawspeakers, of hunts and feasts and long-standing feuds, and by an act of literary magic, makes a remote time, place, and people not only real but dear to us.From the Trade Paperback edition.

"DELECTABLY ENTERTAINING. . . . An uproariously funny and at the same time hauntingly melancholy portrait of a college community in the Midwest."--The New York TimesNestled in the heart of the Midwest, amid cow pastures and waving fields of grain, lies Moo University, a distinguished institution devoted to the art and science of agriculture. Here, among an atmosphere rife with devious plots, mischievous intrigue, lusty liaisons, and academic one-upmanship, Chairman X of the Horticulture Department harbors a secret fantasy to kill the dean; Mrs. Walker, the provost''s right hand and campus information queen, knows where all the bodies are buried; Timothy Nonahan, associate professor of English, advocates eavesdropping for his creative writing assignments; and Bob Carlson, a sophomore, feeds and maintains his only friend: a hog named Earl Butz. In this wonderfully written and masterfully plotted novel, Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Thousand Acres, offers us a wickedly funny comedy that is also a darkly poignant slice of life."FAST, HILARIOUS, AND HEARTBREAKING . . . Not for a minute does Moo lose its perfect satiric pitch or its pacing. . . . Don''t skip a page, don''t skip a paragraph. It''s going to be on the final."--People"SMART, IRREVERENT, AND WICKEDLY TENDER . . . Moo suggests a mix of Tom Wolfe''s wit and John Updike''s satiny reach . . . Engaging."--The Boston Globe"ENTERTAINING . . . Displays a wicked wit and an unerring eye for American foibles . . . Stuffed with memorable characters, sparkling with deliciously acid humor, Moo is a rare bird in today''s literary menagerie: a great read that also makes you think."--Chicago Sun-TimesFrom the Trade Paperback edition.