Monday, November 9, 2015

Golden Age by Jane Smiley

Golden Age: A Novel (Last Hundred Years Book 3) by Jane Smiley --- 443 pages

The final volume in Smiley's Last Hundred Years trilogy (following Some Luck and Early Warning  provides both a satisfying and an unsettling conclusion to the story of the Langdon family.

Golden Age covers the years 1987 to 2019. It starts with the family gathering at the farm in Iowa to welcome in a longlost son. It ends with the quiet passing of the family's mercurial matriarch.

Along the way we see not just the story of one family straying through the years, but the story of a country cast adrift from its understanding of itself. The story ends ambiguously: can the Langdons, can the nation, set a new course before the tide turns irreversibly?

A wonderful achievement by a masterful story teller, mixing the small happenings of ordinary lives with the larger forces of global change.  This is an American saga.

Click HERE to read an interview with Jane Smiley from the Chicago Tribune.

Click HERE to read the review from the Washington Post.

Click HERE to read the review from the San Francisco SFGate.

 Click HERE to read the review from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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