SOME LUCK by Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley is a fellow Iowan and I'd always meant to read her books but hadn't had the chance. While browsing cheap books at the online book outlet store, I stumbled across Some Luck and ordered it.

Right away I could tell Some Luck was going to be different from other books I'd read as early in the book, Smiley includes a chapter told from an infant's point of view. The book is also different in that each chapter is one year; I wondered if this may have signified there would be more telling than showing, but it didn't. The book still tells an engaging story, even if it is in one-year chunks.

Some Luck is about a family and their lives from 1920 through 1953; it is told through several characters' points of view, including those that span the whole book and some who just show up for one or two scenes (mimicking life). The main character, however, seems to be the patriarch (or who eventually becomes the patriarch), Walter Langdon. The book gives a good picture of how farming evolved during the second quarter of the twentieth century, taking the reader through the Great Depression and World War II, among other historic events, along with life in Iowa and the Midwest. I recognized most of the places mentioned, which always adds a little enjoyment to my reading. As it does in living life, the historical events occurred as a backdrop and didn't take center stage, which I believe is how most people experience these events.

To me, the book's theme was life and going through its different stages - infanthood, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and being grandparents; the whole circle of life. Smiley does a good job of letting the reader into the characters' heads, witnessing their innermost thoughts and intimate moments. There is not really a plot in this book that I could discern, per se - there's nothing that the main character overtly "wants" and is prevented from getting - there's just the ebbs and flows and ups and downs of life in rural Iowa from 1920 to 1953.

Some Luck is classic historical fiction written in an original and literary way. I read it in one month and three weeks, so on a can't-put-it-down-scale of one for I couldn't even finish it to ten for I was up until the wee morning hours, I give it a six and a half.

Source: Smiley, Jane. (2015 Reprint). Some Luck. Anchor.