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When I saw this book’s subtitle, ‘What to Read and How to Write’, I felt a hot and cold prickle — but then I do tend to respond badly to direct orders. Hoping my fears were unfounded, I turned to Smiley’s summary of The Great Gatsby. ‘I have to admit that I don’t care as much for The Great Gatsby as many people do,’ she writes. My prickle turned into a frown, and with feelings of panic and hostility I turned next to her comment on Tom Jones. Thank heaven, she admires it: ‘Tom Jones exhibits complexity and generosity of character portrayal … it justly became a great English classic.’ Phew, my panic subsided. I was able to turn to Chapter 1 — her introduction — and begin in earnest.
Author of 11 novels and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for one (A Thousand Acres), Jane Smiley is a writer to whom novel- writing has come easily.
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