Some Luckby Jane Smiley
Rating: ★★★★
Series: Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga #1
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
Genre: historical fiction
Pages: 395
ReRead?: No
Project: a century of women
On their farm in Denby, Iowa, Rosanna and Walter Langdon abide by time-honored values that they pass on to their five wildly different yet equally remarkable children: Frank, the brilliant, stubborn first-born; Joe, whose love of animals makes him the natural heir to his family's land; Lillian, an angelic child who enters a fairy-tale marriage with a man only she will fully know; Henry, the bookworm who's not afraid to be different; and Claire, who earns the highest place in her father's heart.
Moving from post-World War I America through the early 1950s, Some Luck gives us an intimate look at this family's triumphs and tragedies, zooming in on the realities of farm life, while casting-as the children grow up and scatter to New York, California, and everywhere in between-a panoramic eye on the monumental changes that marked the first half of the twentieth century. Rich with humor and wisdom, twists and surprises, Some Luck takes us through deeply emotional cycles of births and deaths, passions, and betrayals, displaying Smiley's dazzling virtuosity, compassion, and understanding of human nature and the nature of history, never discounting the role of fate and chance. This potent conjuring of many lives across generations is a stunning tour de force.
I’m going to be leaning in to my Century of Women project in 2025, because I’d really like to finish it. I picked this book for 2014 using the Orange Prize/Women’s Prize website, which has a nice search function (you can find the search page here). It’s searchable by prize year & genre, as well as an author search. The Women’s Prize started in 1996, so there’s almost 30 years worth of women’s fiction on offer.
I read A Thousand Acres by Smiley close to its publication in 1991 – of course I did. It seemed like everyone was reading it at that point. I also read a very early little murder mystery of hers, Duplicate Keys, which I also really liked. Somehow, at that point, she just sort of fell off my radar. I’ve occasionally thought about going back and picking up some of her books in the interim, but it got away from me.
I remember liking the notion behind Some Luck, and the other books in the trilogy when I heard about them around the time of publication. I am a sucker for historical family sagas, and, as well, I was born in Nebraska, so the idea of following a midwestern farm family through the decades appealed to me.
I really enjoyed Some Luck – the Langdon family was interesting and well-drawn, and dedicating one chapter to each year was a nice way to showcase the changes in the community and the family. Some Luck covers the years 1920 through 1953, immediately post-WWI through the Korean War. It focuses on the patriarch – Walter – and the matriarch – Rosanna – of the Langdon family, their six children: Frank, Joe, Mary Elizabeth, Lillian, Henry and Claire Anna, and their farm in Denby, Iowa.
I’m unlikely to use the later two books in the trilogy, Early Warning and Golden Age, for this project, although I do plan to read them at some point, so I can find out what happens with the Langdon family as the century progresses.